4 killed and 10 Injured in Grenade Attack in Punjab Religious Ceremony

Guwahati: In a grenade attack taking place in Adiwal village near Amritsar, at least 4 are killed and 15 others are injured on Sunday. The incident took place when a religious congregation of the Nirankari was being performed at the Nirankari Bhawan when all of a sudden the grenade exploded in the crowded Bhawan. As per reports, there were almost 200 devotees present at the time of the explosion.

The inhumane killing of four innocent people with many others left critically injured has geared up a tension in the state with the Punjab Chief Minister also expressing worry and grief over the results of the grenade attack. CM Amarinder Singh has also ordered for further investigations into the matter. He says, “The possibility of involvement of ISI-backed Khalistani and Kashmiri terror groups cannot be ruled out. Police teams have been rushed to raid suspected hideouts of the assailants and multiple teams are investigating.”

As stated by the police and other witnesses of the incident, the attack followed two men entering into the hall forcefully. One of them had a flowing beard and they had their faces covered. Armed with a pistol, they first took a ‘sewadar’ under their control and on forcefully entering into the hall, lobbed their grenade in the crowd and escaped immediately on a motorcycle.

The even worrying matter is that the Punjab police was already on alert following an intelligence information of six to seven Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terrorists entering into Punjab from across the international border.

The explosion into the Nirankari Bhawan created a small crater. The forensic team is taking up an investigation into the matter and have also found the safety valve of the grenade.

Inspector-General of Police, Border range (Amritsar), S.P.S. Parmar stated, “The attack has been against a group of people and not against any individual. It seems to be a terror attack as there’s no reason to throw a hand grenade on a group of people.”

Such instances of creating terror among people and attacking people at large and not individually are much expected when banned terrorist groups like JeM are informed to have entered into the state. In fact, this is high time that the common masses of the state and the police, both remain alert for the coming days and make sure that security issues are solved before anything similar gets to be repeated again.

At this point, mention may be made of an incident of hijacking an Innova by four unidentified men near Madhopur in Punjab’s Pathankot district. These me had first taken the SUV on rent and later threw the driver out of the car by threatening him on gunpoint. This made the security agencies too to be on alert so that nothing untoward gets to happen.

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