How they trap youths
INDERJIT SINGH RINKU, 28
An engineering and MBA graduate, Rinku was arrested by the counter intelligence team on April 4 this year. Police says Rinku, who belongs to Faridabad and claims to be a devout Sikh, was radicalised by the ISI through social media and was an active member of the module headed by one Harbarinder Singh and busted on May 29, 2017. He was in touch with ISI officials through Facebook just a few hours before his arrest and was nabbed with explosive materials and equipment to carry out targeted blasts. On the directions of ISI handlers, he had even downloaded the formula for making explosives from the internet.
SHABHNAMDEEP SINGH, 24
Belonging to a nondescript village of Daftari Wala Burar in Patiala, Shabh-namdeep was working as a granthi and was arrested with a hand grenade and pistol last month. A similar hand grenade was used in the Amritsar blast recently. Police claim Shabnamdeep planned to attack police stations and crowded places during the festive season and was an operative of Khalistan Gadar Force, a terror organisation that is running operations for the SFJ. Also known by his aliases Maninder Lahoria and Billa, he had been out on bail for a petty crime in Rajasthan.
Javed Khan Wazir, a Pakistan intelligence officer, contacted Shabnamdeep from Pakistan through Facebook in July and promised him ₹10 lakh for each targeted killing. He had also set several liquor vends on fire to propagate ‘Refrendum 2020’ on the directions of SFJ operative Nihal Singh from Tarn Taran and received money for it.
Police have also arrested Gursewak Singh, 24, from Ratangarh village of Sangrur district on charges that he assisted Shabhnamdeep in transport the grenade and pistol.
AVTAR SINGH, 32
A graduate and a native of Chak Misri Khan village in Amritsar, he is the main perpetrator of Nirankari Satsang Bhawan grenade attack that killed three and injured 16. Avtar’s links have also been traced to Harmeet Singh ‘PhD’, the chief of ISIbacked KLF based in Pakistan.
Avtar was practising as a quack in his village and had no criminal history. Police claim he was contacted on WhatsApp, a few months ago, by one Javed, who claimed to be a Pakistani national from Dubai. Javed, who spoke in Punjabi, first contacted him on the basis of a reference in the garb of seeking consultation for his back problem. Thereafter, he started to discuss Sikh issues with him and motivating him to target the “enemies of the Sikh quom”. Avtar belongs to a dedicated Sikh family and his father is a ‘dharmi fauji’ ( who left the army to protest the ’84 riots).
Around six months ago, Avtar got in touch with ‘PhD’. According to Avtar, the KLF chief would try to motivate him to carry out terror activities in Punjab on the lines of targeted killings of RSS and Dera Sacha Sauda workers in Punjab in 2016-17. Towards the end of October or beginning of November, Avtar got a WhatsApp message from a foreign number with details of a location where a grenade had been buried.