Varanasi on high alert after grenade found on court campus
VARANASI: A high alert was sounded across Kashi following discovery of a hand grenade on the Varanasi district court premises on Saturday. The recovery triggered panic in the area leading to security being beefed up at key sites in the temple town.
Local intelligence unit (LIU) officials link the recovery of the hand grenade to a possible gang war as Brijesh Singh and other mafia dons are quite often brought to the court for appearances in cases.
However, the possibility of a terror angle is also being explored, an official said.
The grenade, wrapped in a polythene bag and placed beneath a stamp vending shop, was spotted at around 9.30 am by a team of policemen during routine morning checking, police said. Police, however, claimed the grenade was inactive as it didn’t have a detonator.
A bomb disposal squad and sniffer dogs were called in immediately. The squad uncovered the packet that had the inactive hand grenade. The court gates were sealed for a thorough search and the entire court compound was sanitised. The search yielded nothing else.
The court work was immediately suspended as the police immediately cordoned off the area. All cases listed for the day in the court have been postponed to Monday. “An inactive hand grenade, which was placed near gate number 1 of the court compound, has been recovered. There was no detonator. It was taken to the police lines,” said senior superintendent of police (SSP) Akash Kulhary.
The SSP denied security lapse, saying: “Police personnel examine the court compound every morning. Owing to our alertness, the grenade was detected.”
The district police chief also ordered a thorough search of the ghats, the Kashi Vishwanath temple, Sankat Mochan temple and other sensitive areas.
The district administration has decided to install closed circuit TV cameras to strengthen the court security, said district magistrate Rajmani Yadav, who was also present on the spot.
Kulhary said that some of the advocates didn’t cooperate with the police on duty at the gates. He appealed to the lawyers to cooperate with them for an effective security check.
However, Nityanand Rai, general secretary of Banaras Bar Association, said, “This is not the case. We always cooperate with police. Even today, we helped police in evacuating the court compound. We appealed to the people and our colleagues to vacate the compound.”
Varanasi is represented by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Parliament.
Nine people had been killed and several injured in a blast on the court premises on November 23, 2007.
(WITH AGENCY INPUTS)