Hong Kong halts extradition of 2016 Nabha jailbreak mastermind, again

Tribune News Service

Kulwinder Sandhu

Moga, July 22

The administration of the Chinese-controlled Hong Kong province has once again stopped the progress of the extradition of Ramanjit Singh, alias Romi, who was the mastermind of the 2016 Nabha jailbreak incident, in which, at least six criminals had escaped from the prison.

On July 8 this year, the Court of Committal in Hong Kong ruled that the Indian Government had satisfied legal requirements and presented prima facie cases to try a non-ethnic Chinese man (Romi) on two offences relating to unlawful escape from lawful custody and ordered his extradition to India. However, the Court of Committal also subsequently made an Order for Committal, ordering the man to be committed to custody to await the Chief Executive’s decision as to his surrender in respect of those two jailbreak offences together with 18 offences that were already committed on November 19, 2019.

Now, a spokesman for the Hong Kong Police, in a communiqué sent to The Tribune on email, has stated, “However, the man lodged a non-refoulement claim before the aforesaid ruling, and the surrender proceeding has been put on hold until the claim is disposed of or dismissed.” It means that the proceedings of his extradition have been stopped till further orders of the ‘non-refoulement claim’ filed by him in the court.

Romi had come all the way from Hong Kong to plan the Nabha jail break and successfully executed the jail break incident in 2016. Later, he was arrested by the Punjab Police in a weapon recovery and fake credit cards case. He got bail in August 2016 and then he fled to Hong Kong in violation of the bail order conditions.

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