Has the hardcore Sikh terrorist group Babbar Khalsa International (BKI) started 'outsourcing' to petty criminals and even first timers in crime?  

The arrest of non-Sikh recruits for their involvement in the May 22 blasts in two Delhi cinema halls has strengthened the belief in top echelons of Punjab Police that that is indeed the case.

Delhi Police Wednesday arrested BKI chief Jagtar Singh Hawara and the suspected Delhi blasts' mastermind Jaspal Singh. Two Hindu recruits of the terrorist outfit have also been arrested in the case -- Vikas Sehgal, held along with the two leaders, and Jagannath who was nabbed about a week ago.

The blasts at Delhi's Satyam and Liberty cinemas during the screening of the controversial "Jo Bole So Nihal" killed one and injured 60.

Some cadres caught recently - other than Hawara - had trimmed beards that implied they were not hardcore Babbars, said a senior police official.

He added that police were probing how the BKI was trying to rope in outsiders for carrying out their activities.

Punjab Police are of the view that the Babbars did not want to be easily identified while carrying out terrorist activities and were, thus, trying to "outsource" work to others.

Babbars were not known to do such things. They were so emotional about their cause that they never even used to change appearance even at the cost of being caught by the police.

Hawara, an accused in the murder of Punjab chief minister Beant Singh in August 1995, had made a daring jailbreak from the high security Burail Jail in Chandigarh Jan 21 last year through a 108-ft tunnel under his barrack with two other Sikh terrorists and another murder convict.

That Hawara did not change his appearance even after escaping from Burail prison confirmed the theory that the hardcore Babbars still believed in their old ideology of not changing appearance and keeping long hair and not cutting or shaving their beards, officials pointed out.

Funds were still coming to the now defunct terrorist groups through money laundering channels from Europe and North America, a police official confirmed.

The Babbars had been lying low ever since 1995 when terrorism all but ended in Punjab after nearly 15 years of bloodshed in the border state.

The jailbreak by Hawara and others and subsequent incidents like the Delhi blasts have given the BKI new life, but the arrest of their top activists by the Delhi Police could wash away their gains.

Punjab Director General of Police S.S. Virk has claimed that recent activities of the BKI were no indicator of Sikh terrorism being revived in Punjab.