A city court on Friday sent Gurjeet Nijjar, 40, accused of involvement in a movement for a separate Khalistan state, to the custody of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) till December 31.
Seeking his custody, the NIA on Friday told the court that a co-accused in the 2018 case registered by the ATS identified as Moin Khan, had been motivated by Nijjar and another co-accused Harpal Singh about atrocities in India on Sikhs and Muslims and then to work for a separate Khalistan state on a Facebook page ‘Khalistani Jindabad Khalistan’.
The agency through its remand plea said that it was on Nijjar’s instructions that Khan had purchased a new SIM card to avoid surveillance and interception by law enforcement agencies. Khan and Nijjar were then in contact with each other through this number using video calling facility and instant messaging app and WhatsApp calls.
He had in October 2018 directed Khan to arrange pistols and ammunition for the secessionist movement and provided Rs 30,000 through contacts in his account for the purpose, the NIA said in its plea.
Further, the agency told the court that the call detail record (CDR) analysis of the accused persons show they were conspiring. The plea mentioned how Khan had received a call on October 14, 2018 from Nijjar when he was meeting a co-accused for the first time to deliver weapons at a Gurudwara in Punjab.
It also told the court that a diary seized from Khan had mentioned contact numbers of Nijjar and Singh.
Nijjar, who was a resident of Pandori Sukha Singh village in Amritsar district, had left for Cyprus in October 2017 under the pretext of study, the agency told the court and had not returned thereafter.
A look-out circular was issued against Nijjar in April 2019 after the authorities could not locate him. The agency filed a charge sheet against him and others in May 2019 in the NIA court, Mumbai and an open-ended non-bailable warrant issued against him by the court was pending against him. He was detained at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi on December 22 and later arrested. The following day, he was produced before a special NIA court in Delhi and brought to Mumbai by on transit remand.
