New Delhi: In 2004, on the intervening night of 21-22 January, four undertrial prisoners, including three who stood accused of killing former Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh, escaped from the Burail jail in Chandigarh.
One of the accused in this case was Narain Singh Chaura, who is currently in police custody for opening fire on Shiromani Akali Dal leader Sukhbir Singh Badal outside the Golden Temple in Amritsar on Wednesday. However, along with several other accused, Chaura was acquitted after the “prosecution failed to prove the case beyond reasonable doubt”.
The acquittal order noted that the prosecution’s case rested on Chaura and two of his co-accused staying in touch with the jail escapees but failed to prove that the three of the accused were in constant touch outside the jail.
As the jailbreak case in which Chaura, who, in the past, was charged by the police under stringent laws, such as the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act, makes news again, ThePrint takes a look at the infamous case.
The infamous jailbreak case
Four prisoners—Jagtar Singh Hawara, Jagtar Singh Tara, Paramjit Singh Bheora, and their cook Devi Singh—escaped the prison bars in the winter of 2004 by digging a 94-foot-long and 2.4-foot-wide tunnel from cell no. 7 in the Munda Khana barracks of the “high-security” Model jail.
The trial in the case continued for 11 years. A trial court, in 2015, acquitted 14 of the accused, including Chaura, saying that the prosecution failed to prove their case beyond reasonable doubt.
Chaura, then 48, was labelled ‘chief conspirator’ in the jailbreak by the police. Court documents show that the police accused him of meeting Baljit Kaur, the wife of Lakhwinder Singh, also lodged in the Burail jail in a different case, four days before the jailbreak.
On the 21-22 January night, the prisoners escaped after someone cut off the electricity supply to the jail, but that only came to the notice of the jail officials at 7 am, court documents reveal.
The prosecution later accused Chaura of arranging Rs 10,000 on Kaur’s instructions and conducting a recce of the area through which the main electricity feeder line to the Burail jail passed.
According to the prosecution, the power cut played a key role in the jailbreak, facilitating the escape in the cover of darkness.
When jail officials realised that someone had cut the power supply, it was too late, and Hawara, Tara, Bheora, and cook Devi Singh had already escaped. Court documents show that the prosecution later asserted that an accused had the book True Stories of Great Escapes, which provided them with the technical knowledge to dig a tunnel.
Initially, the police filed an FIR based on the complaint of the then-superintendent of the Burail jail. However, he, along with others, was later booked for providing undue advantages to the undertrials, not following the prison manual, not taking stricter action on receiving complaints of suspicious activity from barrack no. 7, and not taking punitive measures after finding the sewer lines blocked twice a month.
Hawara and Bheora, linked to Babbar Khalsa International, were convicted in the jailbreak case. Kaur died during the trial.
At the time, the prosecution, in its case against Chaura and the others, submitted that call records showed that Hawara, on 20 and 21 January, called Chaura 10 times.
The court, however, acquitted Chaura, noting there had been certain recoveries, such as iron chains and wires, but the prosecution could not prove Chaura was the one who got those made.
Court records show that police recovered a ‘wooden net seat frame of the chair plastered with soil’, four pieces of clothes made into ropes, one weightlifting iron rod, an electric extension cord, an electric switchboard, 38 bundles of soil filled into clothes and other items from barrack no. 7 as evidence. The prosecution made its case, saying Chaura, Kaur, and another co-accused, Gurnam Singh, stayed in touch with the jail escapees but could not prove the three of them were in constant touch.
Chaura, in his cross-examination, reportedly did not admit to being involved in the jailbreak. He, however, accepted that he provided a 70-metre cloth to the accused, among other items, such as food, turban cloth, etc., when he met them in jail. Court records show that he admitted to cutting off the main power line to the Burail jail in his disclosure statement to the police.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
Also Read: Hours before attack on Badal, Punjab cops got ‘intel on disruption at Golden Temple’, tightened security