Amritsar blast cracked, KLF member held, another on run
CHANDIGARH: Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Wednesday announced that the state police have solved the case of Sunday’s grenade attack on Nirankari Satsang Bhawan in Amritsar, arrested one of the two perpetrators, and also established that the strike was orchestrated by Pakistan’s spy agency.
The arrest and the involvement of the Inter Services Intelligence of Pakistan and non-resident separatist Sikh groups was first reported by Hindustan Times on Tuesday.
Singh disclosed that the accused, Bikramjit Singh, 26, is from Dhariwal village, Rajasansi police station, and was arrested early on Wednesday.
The chief minister said preliminary investigations and CCTV footage of the incident led to the arrest of Bikramjit, who has identified his accomplice as Avtar Singh Khalsa (32), from Chak Mishri Khan village in the Ajnala district. Avtar too would be arrested soon, said the CM.
Bikramjit, a member of Khalistan Liberation Force (KLF), has disclosed that grenade was provided by Harpreet Singh ‘Ph.D.’ alias Happy, a self-styled head of KLF who resides in Pakistan. Happy masterminded the conspiracy to carry out the targeted killings of RSS and Sikh leaders in 2016-2017, in active collaboration with ISI, according to the chief minister.
Both assailants seem to have been radicalised through social media to conduct the attack, said Punjab director general of police, Suresh Arora.
Arora added that Bikramjit’s motorcycle (PB-02-BF9488), which was used in the attack, has also been recovered.
Bikramjit said that Avtar called him up late on the night of November 3 and asked him to be
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This conspiracy was hatched in Lahore. Harpreet Singh ‘Phd’ (selfstyled head of KLF based in Pak) is just a tout, the real mastermind is the ISI. CAPT AMARINDER SINGH, Punjab CM
ready for “an assignment” the next morning. Both set off on Bikramjit’s motorcycle to retrieve the hand grenade from an orchard located at a distance of about 1 km on Majitha-Hariyan link road.
“Happy mentioned the location about this grenade to Avtar through geo location and by sending pictures through social media. They retrieved grenade buried in a pit under a Shisham tree,” said Arora.
The hand grenade ‘HG 84’ is manufactured in Pakistan Ordnance Factories (POF) (as the “84-P2A1”). “HG 84 causes fragmentation after the explosion and releases pellets. Such grenades have been used in J&K in the past. A similar grenade was recovered from another module with the arrest of one Shabhnamdeep Singh, a KLF member arrested from Patiala last month,” said Singh.
Bikramjit also revealed during initial questioning that the two carried out a recce of Nirankari Bhawan on the morning of November 13. During this, he added, the duo checked out the locations of CCTV cameras enroute, according to the police.
On the day of the attack, November 18, they waited for the crowd to gather, the police added.
“After hurling the grenade, both of them fled on Bikramjit’s bike and reached Avtar’s village around 12 noon, where Avtar took back the Pistol from Bikram. After changing his clothes and appearance, Bikramjit drove back to his village on his motorcycle,” Arora said.