Chandigarh: In a major breakthrough, the Punjab police has traced the grenade attack on Amritsar’s Nirankari Satsang Bhavan to ISI-backed Khalistani forces in Pakistan, and arrested one of the two perpetrators of the attack in less than 72 hours after three persons were killed and 15 injured in the terrorist incident.
Announcing this here on Wednesday, chief minister Capt. Amarinder Singh said the suspect Bikramjit Singh, 26, also known as Bikram, the son of Sukhwinder Singh of Dhariwal village, was arrested early on Wednesday from near Loharka village. A massive hunt was on to trace the other suspect, Avtar Singh, the CM added.
Bikram, an operative of the Khalistan Liberation Force (KLF), has given “significant information” indicating the grenade was provided to the assailants by one Happy in Pakistan. It is suspected that “Happy” is Pakistan-based KLF chief Harmeet Singh Happy, who is believed to have earlier masterminded the conspiracy to carry out the targeted killings of RSS/Shiv Sena leaders and workers (and a Christian pastor) in Ludhiana and Jalandhar in 2016-2017, in collaboration with his Pakistani handlers and that country’s Inter-Services Intelligence.
The chief minister categorically ruled out any religious motivation behind the attack and said Sunday’s strike on the Nirankari Bhavan was yet another attempt by the ISI to carry out terrorist attacks in Punjab to disturb peace in the state. It was in the ISI’s interest to keep the border disturbed to ensure peace in Pakistan, Capt. Singh said.
Such attempts by the ISI and the Pakistani establishment to forge links between Punjabi and Kashmiri terrorist groups was a matter of serious concern for Punjab, the chief minister said, adding that the state police was working closely with Central agencies to check the rise of such forces. The CM noted that there had been only two terror attacks in the state in 2018, including the Maqsudan PS attack and Sunday’s incident, and both had been successfully solved by the police, which had also cracked all cases of targeted killings. The sacrilege cases in the past 18 months had also been solved, he said.
Giving details, the CM said preliminary investigations and CCTV footage of the incident had led to the arrest of Bikram, who had identified his accomplice as Avtar Singh Khalsa, 32, son of Gurdial Singh of Chak Mishri Khan village at Lopoke (Ajnala) in Amritsar district.
Giving further details, Punjab DGP Suresh Arora said Bikram was riding a TVS motorcycle (PB-18 M-7032) at the time of his arrest. Bikram’s other black Bajaj Pulsar motorcycle (PB-02-BF9488), which he had used in the attack, had also been recovered, the DGP added.
