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Grenade blast outside army camp in Punjab’s Pathankot, no damage
Grenade blast occurred outside army camp in Pathankot at 9 pm, said officials. This is the second blast within two weeks in poll-bound Punjab. On November 8, a grenade was hurled at the CIA office of the Punjab police in SBS Nagar.
A grenade blast occurred outside the gate of an army camp at Pathankot following which an alert was sounded in the border district, police said on Monday. No casualty was reported in the blast that took place on Sunday night, they said.
Some unidentified persons on a motorcycle hurled the grenade in front of the Triveni Dwar of the military camp at Dheerapaul here, police said. The blast comes two weeks after a grenade was hurled at the Nawanshahr office of the Crime Investigation Agency (CIA) wing of police. The low-intensity explosion, however, had not resulted in any damage.
“The CCTV footage obtained from the scene and the roads leading to the spot is being analysed to trace the accused,” Pathankot senior superintendent of police (SSP) Surendra Lamba said. Some parts of the hand grenade have been recovered from the site and a forensic team has collected samples, the SSP added. “The explosion was of medium intensity. The armymen on duty, however, had a narrow escape,” Lamba said. The police also suspected that the grenade may have been smuggled from Pakistan, but the SSP did not divulge anything about it citing that the investigation is underway.
An alert has been sounded in the area after the blast as the district is prone to the infiltration of terrorists. The Pathankot air force base was attacked by terrorists five years ago. Punjab deputy chief minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa on Monday said he has called a meeting of senior officers of the Amritsar border zone and Jalandhar zone on Tuesday to review the law-and-order situation and security in the state.
Security at all the checkposts of the district has been tightened. A car with different number plates was found abandoned in the town. The vehicle has been seized. The SSP, however, said, it was not linked with the blast. There were also reports that two suspicious persons were spotted in the Bamyal area of Pathankot, but the police did not confirm it.
