Punjab Police foil possible terrorist attack, one held

Chandigarh, Nov 24 (IANS) With the arrest of a highly-radicalised operative identified as Ranjit Singh of Tarn Taran, linked with foreign-based terrorist entities, Punjab Police on Wednesday claimed it foiled another possible terrorist attack.

The police have recovered two Chinese made P-86 hand grenades and two pistols along with cartridges, besides a black Royal Enfield motorcycle from his possession, said Director General of Police Iqbal Preet Singh Sahota here.

He said acting on intelligence inputs about the presence of Ranjit Singh in the area of Amritsar, special teams were sent to the specified area to spot the suspect and Ranjit Singh was apprehended.

This development comes at a moment when Punjab has been witnessing huge inflow of hand grenades and tiffin bombs along with other weapons.

Recently, the state has also seen a couple of grenade blasts, including the cantonment area in Pathankot, besides the recovery of an unexploded hand-grenade from Zira area.

The DGP said during investigation, Ranjit Singh revealed that he had formed a group named "Kaum De Rakhe" to collect funds on the pretext of social work and through this group, he got in touch with various radical and terrorist elements based in the UK and other countries through social media.

He said recently Ranjit Singh had received a consignment of arms and explosives, and was planning to carry out a terror strike to create an atmosphere of fear and lawlessness in the border state.

The DGP said Ranjit Singh was part of a group, which had vandalised statues of folk dancers installed at the heritage street leading to the Golden Temple in Amritsar on January 15, 2020.

Arrested in the statue vandalism case, he was presently on bail, he added.