Punjab Police have solved the hand grenade attacks, including the one at Pathankot Army Camp, by busting a terror module backed by International Sikh Youth Federation (ISYF) group with the arrest of its six operatives.
The SBS Nagar police have also recovered six hand-grenades (86 P), one pistol (9mm), one rifle (.30 bore) along with live bullets and magazines from their possession, Director General of Police (DGP) Punjab VK Bhawra said here on Monday.
Those arrested have been identified as Amandeep alias Mantri of village Lakhanpal, Gurwinder Singh alias Gindi of village Kharal, Parminder Kumar alias Rohit alias Rohta of village Kharal, Rajinder Singh alias Malhi alias Nikku of village Gunnupur, Harpreet Singh alias Dholki of village Gotpokar and Raman Kumar of village Ghazikot, all in Gurdaspur.
According to sources, in two instances some unidentified persons had hurled hand grenades at Pathankot— one near Chakki Pull on November 11, 2021, at about 9:30 pm, while, another grenade attack took place outside Triveni Dwar, 21 sub-area of Army at Pathankot on November 21, 2021 at about 9 pm. Separate FIRs in this regard were registered at Police Station Pathankot Division 2 and Division 1, respectively.
The DGP said that during the preliminary interrogation, accused revealed that they were directly in touch with self-proclaimed chief of ISYF (Rode) Lakhbir Singh Rode and his close aides identified as Sukhmeetpal Singh alias Sukh Bhikhariwal and Sukhpreet alias Sukh for planning attacks.
“The entire cache of the recovered hand grenades, arms and ammunition were pushed in from across the International border by Lakhbir Rode and arrested accused persons had been tasked for further attacking the pre-identified targets which were mainly police and defence establishments, religious places etc,” he said, adding that the accused have also confessed to have lobbed hand grenades for two times in Pathankot.
SSP SBS Nagar Kanwardeep Kaur said they have registered the FIR dated 07-01-2021 under sections 16,17,18 and 20 of the UA(P) Act, sections 4 and 5 Explosive Substances Act and section 25 of the Arms Act. “Further investigations are on.”
The role of Rode was also found in killing of Comrade Balwinder Singh at Bhikhiwind on October 16, 2020 besides in the recovery of tiffin IED, RDX, arms and ammunition from his relative Gurmukh Singh Rode from Jalandhar in August 2021.