Punjab Police on Monday claimed to have solved the hand grenade attacks including attack at Pathankot Army Camp by busting a terror module backed by International Sikh Youth Federation (ISYF) group with the arrest of its six operatives.

The SBS Nagar police have also recovered six hand-grenades (86 P), one pistol (9mm), one rifle (.30 bore) along with live bullets and magazines from their possession, Director General of Police (DGP) Punjab, VK Bhawra said here on Monday.

Those arrested have been identified as Amandeep alias Mantri of village Lakhanpal in Gurdaspur, Gurwinder Singh alias Gindi of village Kharal in Gurdaspur, Parminder Kumar alias Rohit alias Rohta of village Kharal in Gurdaspur, Rajinder Singh alias Malhi alias Nikku of village Gunnupur in Gurdaspur, Harpreet Singh alias Dholki of village Gotpokar in Gurdaspur and Raman Kumar of village Ghazikot in Gurdaspur.

As per the information, in two instances some unidentified persons had hurled hand grenades at Pathankot— one near Chakki Pull on 11 November 2021 at about 9:30 p.m., while another grenade attack took place outside Triveni Dwar, 21 sub-area of Army at Pathankot on 21 November 2021 at about 9 p.m. Separate FIRs in this regard were registered at Police Station Pathankot Division 2 and Division 1 respectively.

Giving details, the DGP said that during the preliminary interrogation, the accused revealed they were directly in touch with self proclaimed Chief of ISYF (Rode) Lakhbir Singh Rode and his close aides identified as Sukhmeetpal Singh alias Sukh Bhikhariwal and Sukhpreet alias Sukh for planning terrorist attacks.

“The entire cache of the recovered hand grenades, arms and ammunition were pushed in from across the International border by Lakhbir Rode and arrested accused persons had been tasked for further attacking the pre-identified targets which were mainly police and defense establishments, religious places etc,” he said, adding that the accused persons have also confessed to have lobbed hand grenades for two times in Pathankot.

Earlier, the role of Lakhbir Rode was also found in killing of Comrade Balwinder Singh at Bhikhiwind on 16 October 2020 besides in the recovery of tiffin IED, RDX, arms and ammunition from his relative Gurmukh Singh Rode from Jalandhar in August 2021.

Sukhmeetpal Singh alias Sukh Bhikhariwal, who is presently lodged in Tihar Jail, Delhi was also involved in killing of Comrade Balwinder Singh and in case of murderous attack on Honey Mahajan at Dhariwal on 10 February 2020. He was deported from Dubai in December 2020. Sukh Bhikhariwal provided foot soldiers, arms and ammunition, logistics, funds, etc for execution of these crimes.