The Punjab police on Wednesday said it has arrested one of the two perpetrators of the grenade attack on Nirankari Satsang Bhawan in Amritsar’s Adliwal, which claimed three lives.
Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh said the suspect, Bikramjit Singh, 26, a resident of Dhariwal village in Rajasansi, was arrested on Wednesday from near Loharka village in Amritsar.
“Bikramjit, an operative of the Khalistan Liberation Force (KLF), has given significant information indicating that the grenade was provided to the assailants by one Happy in Pakistan. Happy is suspected to be the Pakistan-based KLF chief who had earlier masterminded the conspiracy to carry out the targeted killings of RSS and Shiv Sena leaders and also a Christian pastor in Ludhiana and Jalandhar in 2016-2017 in active collaboration with the Pakistani establishment and ISI,” he said.
Capt. Singh said the latest attack was an attempt by Pakistan's ISI to carry out terrorist activities to disturb the peace in the State.
The Chief Minister said that preliminary investigation and CCTV footage of the incident had led to the arrest of Bikramjit, who identified his accomplice as Avtar Singh Khalsa, 32, a resident of village Chak Mishri Khan in Ajnala.
Two-wheeler seized
Punjab DGP Suresh Arora said Bikramjit was riding a motorbike at the time of his arrest, which had been recovered. “During interrogation, Bikramjit disclosed that he reached the house of Avtar Singh in Chak Mishri Khan village on his motorcycle at about 9 a.m. They started for village Adliwal around 9.30 am. They waited in the area for the crowd to congregate at the Satsang Bhawan. Both of them were armed with pistols at that time. After hurling the grenade, both of them fled on the motorbike and reached Avtar’s village,” he said.
Mr. Arora added that according to Bikramjit, Avtar Singh was in touch with Happy, who had got the hand grenade dumped near an orchard near Majitha through some other associates.
“Happy had earlier come to notice for supply of a hand grenade of the same specifications to Shabnamdeep Singh, the self-styled chief of Khalistan Gaddar Force (KGF), who was arrested by the Punjab police on October 31,” said Mr. Arora.
