5-day remand for youth arrested in Amritsar grenade attack case

A court in Punjab on Thursday sent Bikramjit Singh, who was arrested by the Punjab Police on Wednesday for the grenade attack on a prayer meeting of the Nirankari sect, to five days in police custody.

The opposition Shiromani Akali Dal on Thursday asked Chief Minister Amarinder Singh and the state police to provide "unquestionable truth" about Bikramjit's involvement.

Bikramjit was produced before a court in Ajnala town, around 30km from Amritsar, on Thursday.

Bikramjit's accomplice, Avtar Singh, who threw the hand grenade at the religious congregation, continued to elude the police for the fifth day after the incident.

Three people were killed and 15 others injured when the grenade was lobbed at the prayer meeting being held in the hall of the NIrankari Satsang Bhawan in Adliwal village in Rajasansi area of Amritsar on Sunday.

Within 72 hours of the terror incident, the Punjab Police claimed that it had arrested Bikramjit, 26, a resident of Dhariwal village near Rajasansi, for the terror act.

Bikramjit had reportedly stood at the gate of the Nirankari Bhawan premises, holding the gate attendants at gun-point.

Chief Minister Amarinder Singh blamed Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency and the Pakistan-based masterminds of the Khalistan Liberation Force (KLF) for the terror attack.

The Chief Minister said the grenade used in the blast was Pakistan made. Amarinder said it was a "terror incident" and there was no religious link to it.

Senior Akali Dal leader and MP, Prem Singh Chandumajra, asked the Chief Minister "to bring the complete unquestionable truth about the involvement of Dhariwal resident Bikramjit Singh before the people of the state to allay apprehensions raised by residents of his village that he was being framed in the case".

The family of the arrested man has disputed the police claim.

In a statement here, Chandumajra said: "History has recorded that the Congress trampled upon innocents and implicated them in false cases which led to two decades of turmoil in the state."

There should not be any doubt, he said, about the intentions of the government in solving the Amritsar grenade blast case.

The villagers of Dhariwal, he noted, had emphasized that Bikramjit, one of the alleged assailants, was tilling his fields when the blast occurred.

"This raises a question mark over the entire investigation and now the Punjab Police are duty-bound to give irrefutable proof to the villagers that Bikramjit was involved in the bomb blast case," Chandumajra said.

--IANS

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