The Amritsar blast was triggred by Pakistan’s ISI-backed terrorists who planted the grenade — brought from across the border — with Pakistan Ordinance Factory mark under a tree at a gathering at Adliwal’s Nirankari Bhawan on Sunday. This and much more was revealed by Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh on Wednesday following the arrest of one of the two suspects in the blast case.
Within 72 hours of the blast that took three lives and left 20 others injured, the Punjab Police solved the case by identifying the two attackers, and arresting one of them from Loharka village in Amritsar’s Raja Sansi.
The attackers have been identified as Bikramjit Singh of Dhariwal village under Raja Sansi police station, who was arrested on early Wednesday morning from near Loharka village in the area, and another as Avtar Singh of Chak Mishri Khan village in Lopoke, Ajnala in Amritsar.
Declaring that the second assailant would soon be arrested, the Chief Minister minced no words to say that the attack was masterminded by Pak-based Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) with the “sole aim to disturb Punjab’s peace”.
“ISI has masterminded this attack...It is using our men as touts. The grenade has POF mark, made with know-how of Austria’s Arges,” said Capt Amarinder.
“Bikramjit Singh, who was the biker and attacked the gatekeeper, has been arrested by the police. We are on to the second person and it is just a question of time,” said Capt Amarinder adding that he has admitted the crime and disclosed that he is working for the Khalistan Liberation Force (KLF).
The HG 84 grenade, commonly used by Pakistan against our Army in Kashmir, was used in the attack. This type of grenade is filled with small pellets and is very destructive and has effective range of 30 meter radius.
While Bikramjit is just 26-year-old, Avtar is 32, and “both were not trained. They did what they have been told to do. They were the first timers”.
At the same time, Chief Minister ruled out any religious motivation behind the attack, while described Amritsar attack on Nirankari Bhawan as “purely terrorist act”.
“There was no communal business in this. It was purely a terrorist act. These people were easy targets...They just wanted to disturb Punjab’s peace. After seeing that previous attack on RSS leaders could not do anything in the State, they are now going in for large scale killings,” he said.
Rubbishing the rumours regarding the arrest of the second accused by the evening, DGP Suresh Arora told The Pioneer that efforts are being made to apprehend him.
He said that the preliminary investigations and CCTV footage of the incident had led to the arrest of Bikramjit.
“Bikram was riding a motorbike (TVS PB-18 M-7032) at the time of his arrest. Bikram’s black Bajaj Pulsar motorcycle (PB-02-BF9488), which he has used in the attack, has also been recovered,” said Arora.
During interrogation, Bikramjit has disclosed that Avtar Singh called him up late on the night of November 3, and asked him to be ready for an assignment the next morning. “Around 4.30 am that day, Avtar reached Bikram’s house and both set off on Bikram’s Bajaj Pulsar motorcycle to retrieve the hand grenade from an Orchard located at a distance of about one km on Majitha-Hariyan link road. They retrieved the HE 84 hand grenade, which had been buried in a half feet deep pit under a Shisham tree,” told Arora.
Before committing the crime, they carried out the recee of Nirankari Satsang Bhawan on November 13 morning, when no one was present at the premises. “They especially checked out the locations of CCTV cameras enroute, the layout plan of the Bhawan and the distance from the main gate on the boundary wall of the Bhawan to the Satsang Bhawan building,” said Arora.
The State police chief informed that Bikramjit has further disclosed that as decided on November 16, Bikram reached Avtar’s house at Chak Mishri Khan village at about 9 am, where they removed the number plate of the motorcycle. “They started for Adliwal village at about 9.30 am and covered their faces on the way, near village Manawala. They waited in the area for the crowd to congregate at the Satsang Bhawan. Both of them were armed with pistols at that time,” said Arora.
Bikram has further revealed that while Avtar successfully slinked into the Satsang Bhawan complex through the open gate, along with the sangat which had just reached there, he himself managed to subdue and take control, at gunpoint, of the two sewadars who had been deployed at the two gate-posts of the Satsang Bhawan complex.
After hurling the grenade, both of them fled on Bikram’s mobike and reached Avtar’s village around 12 noon, where Avtar took back the pistol from Bikram. After changing his cloths and appearance, Bikram drove back to his village on his black Bajaj Pulsar motorcycle.
According to Bikramjit, Avtar Singh was in touch with “one Happy” in Pakistan, who had got the hand grenade dumped near the Orchard near Majitha through some of his other associate(s). Bikram has revealed that the geo-location details as well as pictures of the dump location were sent to Avtar on his mobile to facilitate the retrieval of the hand grenade.
Harmeet Singh Happy, known as PhD, had earlier come to notice for supply of a hand-grenade (Arges Type HG-84) of the same specifications to Patiala lad Shabnamdeep Singh, a self-styled chief of Khalistan Gaddar Force (KGF), who was arrested by Punjab Police (Patiala) on October 31.