Punjab CM Orders Police top Brass to Rush Adliwal Village to Probe Nirankari Bhawan

Spokesman News Service: Chandigarh, November 18: Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Sunday ordered the Home Secretary, DG Police, DG Law and Order and DG Intelligence to immediately rush to Village Adliwal, Raja Sansi, to personally supervise the investigations into the suspected hand grenade attack at Nirankari Bhawan, which claimed three lives and left 15 people injured.

The chief minister, who reviewed the law and order situation following the blast, has also directed the police to immediately enhance security arrangements at all sensitive places in the wake of the explosion  – the first such indiscriminate attack on innocent people in recent past.

Forensic teams have been rushed to the spot and all angles were being investigated, said the chief minister, adding that the possibility of involvement of ISI-based Khalistani/Kashmiri terror groups could not be ruled out. Police teams have been rushed to raid suspected hideouts of the assailants and multiple teams are investigating various angles to crack the case.

Captain Amarinder Singh said his government was on top of things and would get to the bottom of the incident soon and ensure that the culprits are apprehended and brought to book. Nobody will be allowed to get away with trying to disturb the peace and harmony of the state, he warned.

The chief minister has also announced a compensation of Rs five lakhs each to the kin of the dead and directed the district administration to provide the best possible medical care, free of cost, to the injured. The chief minister said preliminary investigations had so far revealed that two men, one of them with a flowing beard, with covered faces, allegedly forced their way into the hall by brandishing a pistol. They detained the sewadar, lobbed the grenade into the prayer room, and fled on a motorcycle.

A crater, which is 3” in diameter was formed by the impact of the explosion and was being examined by the forensic team. The safety valve of the grenade has also been found and was being examined. The chief minister has meanwhile appealed to the people not to panic and maintain peace and law and order. Let us remain calm, he said, adding that the government would ensure there is no chaos in the wake of the incident.

Though the state had been hit by a series of cases of targeted attacks since 2015/16, this was the first attempt, in a long time, to disturb the peace in the state through indiscriminate killings, said the Chief Minister, adding that it strengthened the belief that Pakistan was continuing with its nefarious activities to disturb the state’s peace.

He pointed out that 15 such terror modules had been busted in the past 18 months, with Kashmiri terror links also indicated in some instances, as evidenced in the arrest of Kashmiri students from Jalandhar and in the Maqsudan police station grenade blast case.