With Delhi Police nabbing wanted Sikh terrorist Jagtar Singh Hawara from almost under their nose, Punjab Police were Thursday pulled up by newspapers here for "complete intelligence failure".

The high-profile Punjab Police - known for encounters and getting people to "confess" to crimes - were criticised by nearly all newspapers in the Punjab and Haryana region for their failure to find Hawara, the Babbar Khalsa International's (BKI) India chief.
 
A prominent daily said it was "ashamed" that Punjab Police did not get Hawara.
 
Delhi Police - on the trail of BKI activists who had allegedly masterminded the May 22 blasts in two New Delhi cinema halls that killed one person and injured 60 - got Hawara quite by chance.

Delhi Police were on the track of the cinema blasts' case mastermind Jaspal Singh with whom Hawara had fixed a meeting outside the Punjabi University campus in Patiala after the police mounted pressure on him.

The district police in Patiala or even the state police top brass had no idea till Wednesday morning that Delhi Police had got hold of their "most wanted" terrorist.
 
That the capture of Hawara and the Delhi blasts' mastermind Jaspal Singh and others took place in Patiala - the home city and district of state Chief Minister Amarinder Singh - was even more damaging for Punjab Police.

Hawara was also involved in the assassination of Punjab chief minister Beant Singh and had made a sensational escape from the high security Burail prison here on Jan 21 last year through a 108-foot long tunnel dug under his barrack.

Newspapers, quoting intelligence sources, said Hawara had remained in Punjab after his escape and went to Jammu once but no one tried to trace him.

He had not changed his appearance and was easily recognizable. He lived in a village close to his native village - Hawara Kalan - in Fatehgarh Sahib district, 60 km from state capital Chandigarh.

Director general of Punjab Police S.S. Virk and his predecessor A.A. Siddiqui (in whose tenure Hawara had escaped) had been emphatically claiming that Hawara had fled to Pakistan or some other country.

Newspapers said Punjab Police had not cared to raid the Punjabi University campus - a known hideout of Hawara - after his escape. He was caught outside the same campus Tuesday though Delhi Police claimed he had been arrested from Narela in Haryana Wednesday.

Police sources here said that even Jaspal did not know that the man he was meeting was in fact Hawara.

When cornered by Delhi Police officials Hawara took to his heels but got entangled in the barbed wire of the university wall, leading to his arrest. Jaspal was nabbed near some shops.

The only saving grace for Punjab Police came from their Delhi counterparts when Delhi Police Commissioner K.K. Paul claimed that the Sikh terrorists were nabbed from Narela on the outskirts of Delhi as they were trying to flee to Nepal.

It was another matter that there were eyewitnesses to the Delhi Police operation outside the main gate of Punjabi University, Patiala, where they nabbed Hawara, Jaspal and others.

A senior police officer here claimed that for the first few hours, Delhi Police did not even realise that they had laid their hands on Hawara, a much bigger catch than Jaspal Singh, whom they were looking for.

Hawara had a reward of Rs.500,000 on his head and the Delhi Police was likely to claim that.