Kuala Lumpur, Aug 19: Three suspected Sikh separatists, sought by Indian police have been arrested and deported by Malaysian police after several months of surveillance.
The three suspected Babbar Khalsa International (BKI) militants were identified as Amarjit Singh Jasvir Singh, Daljit Singh Ajaib Singh Khalsa and Kawal Singh Soundh.
The arrests were made earlier this month at various locations in Kuala Lumpur and they were deported to India on Tuesday.
Malaysia's Federal Special Task Force (Operations and Counter Terrorism) chief Mohamad Fuzi Harun said the three men had blended well into the local Sikh community here and were also involved in various businesses.
Amarjit, 30, a software engineer from Nangal Ropar, owned a restaurant in the ethnic Indian enclave of Brickfields or “Little India”. He had bought the restaurant more than a year ago.
Daljit, 36, from Mumbai, was a manager at a subsidiary of a local telecommunication company.
He owned a traditional Sikh music school in another Indian dominated neighbourhood of Sentul and was arrested from his house, in the same district.
Kawal, 39, from Punjab, was a network programmer. He was arrested at his home in the upscale neighbourhood of Ampang. He had been operating a house renovation business here for more than a year.
“They were allegedly involved in terror activities in India but here, their main task was to provide financial and logistic help to their comrades who used Malaysia as a transit point,” said Fuzi, adding that the three also provided fake identities for their countrymen.
Fuzi said the three did not plan any terrorist activities here.
He said the task force learnt the three were hiding here following remarks by Punjab police last year that Malaysia was being used as a base by the BKI.
The remarks followed arrest of three senior BKI operatives by the Punjab police when the they returned from Malaysia last year. PTI
