Rattandeep Singh, 49, a former chief of militant outfit Bhindranwale Tiger Force of Khalistan (BTFK), was shot dead at Balachaur in Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar early on Thursday.

Police said Rattandeep Singh, who belongs to Karnal in Haryana, was accompanied by his nephew, Gurpreet Singh, when two motorcycle-borne, unidentified assailants opened fire at him. Gurpreet escaped unhurt.

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A one-time hardcore militant, Rattandeep was the prime suspect in the bomb blast in the parking area of the old passport office in Sector 34, Chandigarh, on June 30, 1999, in which four people were injured. He owned the scooter used for carrying the bomb. The BTKF militant was behind the blast on the railway bridge in Panipat the same year and had planted an improvised explosive device (IED) at the Shahabad-Markanda bridge in 1998. He was an accused in the arms recoveries in Jind district in 1996 and 2000.

Though Haryana Police arrested him in August 1999, he managed to escape. He was the kingpin of a group of militants who planted explosives in a vehicle near Circuit House in Amritsar in May 2010. He had smuggled the consignment of weapons and explosives from across the border.

A state special operations cell (SSOC) of Punjab Police finally arrested Rattandeep from the outskirts of Gorakhpur in eastern Uttar Pradesh on September 17, 2014. He was carrying a Pakistani passport and identity card in the name of Hussain Sheikh Zahid. An official said Rattandeep was a Pakistan-based militant, who had been living there since 1993. He visited India to carry out terror strikes.

Jailed for his terror links, Rattandeep was released in 2019 after he completed his term. Since then, he had been staying with his family in Karnal as no case was pending against him.

Superintendent of police Mukesh Kumar said Rattandeep’s nephew told the police that they had come in their car to meet unidentified persons near a private hospital at Garhi village in Balachaur when the two motorcycle-borne men opened fire indiscriminately. The assailants targeted Rattandeep, who was injured in the chest and stomach and died on the spot.

The police recovered incriminating documents from his car and launched an investigation into his former links with the militant outfit.

Soon after the incident, gangster Gopi Nawanshahria took to social media to claim responsibility for the killing. “Rattandeep was acting as a police tout and has committed a fraud with innocent youngsters,” the gangster posted on Facebook.

The SP said the social media post could not be verified at this stage.

On the statement of Rattandeep’s nephew, a case was registered under Section 302 (murder) of the IPC besides the Arms Act.