Amritsar blast case solved, grenade was made in Pakistan: Amarinder
The blast occurred at a congregation of the Nirankari, a spiritual organisation, in Adliwal village of Amritsar.
Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence was the real mastermind of the grenade attack on Nirankari Bhawan in Amritsar three days back, Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh said on Wednesday, adding that the case has been solved.
Three people were killed and 20 injured when two masked bike-borne men forced their way into the prayer hall in Adliwal village of Amritsar on Sunday and threw the grenade on the crowd.
The chief minister showed pictures of the two accused and said that one of the two, named Bikramjit Singh (26) has been arrested and his associate, Avtar Singh will be arrested soon.
“The person who is the mastermind (of the attack) is Inter-Services Intelligence. These (Harmeet Singh ‘PhD’ alias Happy) are only touts which they were using,” he said.
Khalistan Liberation Force chief Harmeet PhD, who has been in Pakistan for more than two decades, was being probed in connection with the attack. He is already the prime suspect accused of strategising the targeted killings of Punjab’s some socio-religious leaders in 2016-17. He is a native of Amritsar district and a doctorate, which earned him the surname of ‘PhD’, his profile with the state intelligence department says.
He has also been booked by National Investigating Agency (NIA) investigating the cases of targeted killings of different community leaders, mainly those belonging to the right wing groups.
Comparing grenades found earlier, Amarinder said, “This is the type of grenade which has been taken from other modules. This is the one being used against forces in Kashmir. This one is made under license by Pakistan ordnance factory and is filled with pellets.”
He ruled out communal angle to the attack and asserted that it was a terrorist attack. The people at the Nirankari Bhawan were easy targets, and so they were targeted, he said.
“We had info in the past about other organisations being targeted but we took precautionary measures and prevented that,” he said.
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