Mother of Punjab terror suspect hangs self

The mother of a young techie committed suicide at her home in Punjab on Saturday, two days after her son shot himself dead over alleged terror links, police said on Saturday.

The woman, Kiranjot Kaur, 58, was found hanging from a ceiling fan early on Saturday. She lived in Patiala, 75 km from here.

Kaur, police officials said, was very tense and under depression after her 24-year-old son, Rajatvir Singh, shot himself dead on June 1 minutes before a police raid.

The Punjab Police were on the trail of Rajatvir, a computer engineer from a Punjab-based private university, after getting information that a father-son duo was testing bombs in a village near the Punjabi University campus in Patiala.

Rajatvir's father, Harpreet Singh, was arrested on Thursday after police recovered explosives like pressure cooker bomb, pipe bombs and a suicide bomber jacket from his car.

"We were shocked to find a pressure cooker bomb, a few pipe bombs, three country-made arms, live cartridges and binoculars," Patiala range Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Sukhchain Singh Gill told media on Thursday.

Police officials said the matter was being investigated, including a possible link to the blast in Maur town near Bathinda ahead of the February 4 Assembly elections, which left seven people dead.

Rajatvir's house was to be searched on Thursday but he committed suicide minutes before the raid, police said.

The police and ballistic experts are investigating whether Rajatvir was an expert in bomb-making or was preparing to be a "suicide bomber".

The police and security agencies in Punjab are on alert in view of the 33rd anniversary of Operation Bluestar, the Army's action at the Golden Temple complex in Amritsar in June 1984 to flush out heavily armed terrorists seeking a separate Sikh homeland called 'Khalistan'.

--IANS

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