[caption id="attachment_219731" align="alignleft" width="217"]
Avtar Singh Khalsa, one of the accused in Nirankari Bhawan grenade blast being produced in Ajnala court, in Amritsar on Saturday.[/caption]
Chandigarh, Nov. 24 (PTI): Punjab police on Saturday claimed to have nabbed the man who allegedly threw a grenade on a religious congregation at Nirankari Bhavan in Amritsar last Sunday leaving three persons dead, the second arrest in the case.
Avtar Singh has been arrested from Khayala village under police station Lopoke (in Amritsar), Director General of Police Suresh Arora told reporters here, adding that they will produce him in court and seek his remand.
The DGP said that two pistols (.32 bore), one of them US made, which the perpetrators were carrying on the day of attack have been recovered along with four magazines and 25 live rounds.
Police have already arrested Bikramjit Singh, an operative of militant organisation Khalistan Liberation Force (KLF) who was allegedly driving the motorcycle on that day.
It is alleged that Avtar Singh threw the grenade. He is a resident of village Chak Mishri Khan, Lopoke (Ajnala), Amritsar.
Avtar’s links have also been traced to Harmeet Singh Happy alias PhD, the self- styled chief of ISI-backed KLF, based in Pakistan, said the DGP.
“Happy has emerged as the most active leader of outfits working under the watch and directions of Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI), which is determined to spread terrorism in the border state of Punjab by radicalising poor and gullible youths of the state and motivating them to carry out terrorist actions,” DGP Arora claimed.
The DGP said that initial investigations revealed that a person identified as Javed, who is Pakistan-based, was allegedly involved in misguiding the accused to carry out the terrorist act .
“Avtar, who is a quack, was contacted on WhatsApp a few months ago by one Javed, who claimed to be a Pakistani national from Dubai.
“The so-called Pakistani national, who spoke in Punjabi, first contacted him on the basis of a reference for seeking consultation for his back problem,” the DGP said.
Thereafter, he started discussing Sikh issues with him and motivated him to target the so called “enemies of the Sikh ‘quom’ (community)”, the official said.
A few months ago, Javed put Avtar in touch with Happy who tried to motivate him to carry out terrorist acts in Punjab on the lines of targeted killings of RSS and Dera Sacha Sauda (DSS) workers in Punjab in 2016-17.
According to preliminary investigations, Avtar Singh claimed that about two months ago, he contacted his maternal cousin Paramjit Singh Baba, based in Italy, to arrange weapons “to settle scores” with some people of his village, police said.
Baba put him in touch with Happy, based in Pakistan, who Avtar had identified as the same person introduced to him by Javed. Happy promised Avtar that he will arrange weapons for him, the DGP said. Avtar along with Bikramjit retrieved a bag containing two .32 bore pistols, four magazines, twenty-five cartridges and one hand grenade near Majitha on November 4 and allegedly carried out the crime, police said.
During investigation, Avtar said that he was staunchly opposed to ‘Derawad’ and all the self-styled gurus of sects such as the Dera Sacha Sauda, they said.
