Thursday, June 30 2005 18:19 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Amritsar: Police arrested a Babbar Khalsa militant who was going to be used as a 'human bomb' to assassinate Ashutosh Maharaj, the head of a religious sect 'Divya Jyoti Jagrati Sansthan' and recovered a large quantity of arms and ammunition from Butala village, 40 km from Amritsar, a senior official said today (Jun 30, 2005).

"The human bomb Tarsem Singh belongs to Babbar Khalsa International and was going to assassinate Ashutosh Maharaj but we arrested him at village Butala," Senior Superintendent of Police, Majitha, Vibhu Raj said.

According to police, Tarsem, a resident of district Sangrur, had links with BKI India chief Jagtar Singh Hawara and had acquaintance with the Babbar militants who had carried out the twin cinema hall blasts in Delhi on May 22.

"Tarsem Singh was arrested on June 25 with sophisticated electronic devices found wrapped around his waist, besides hand-grenade, 550 live cartridges of AK-47, detonators and bottle bombs," the SSP said.

"We wanted to investigate his links and did not disclose his arrest earlier," he said.

"During interrogation the accused revealed that he was having links with the top militants of BKI, accused of Burail Jail break at Chandigarh last year, including BKI India chief Jagtar Singh Hawara," Raj added.

Police sources said Tarsem came in contacts with the BKI a few years back and was given assignment to kill Ashutosh Maharaj as BKI believed he was "misleading the Sikh masses."

Tarsem said BKI has prepared more 'human bombs' and few of them have already been assigned their jobs to hit their targets, according to senior police officials.