Car with explosives found in Amritsar (Second Lead)

AMRITSAR - A car with two kg of explosives was found abandoned near a busy railway station here Saturday, police said. The vehicle carried a fake Delhi registration number.

“The car (DEA 5554) was found near the crowded station,” Amritsar police Commissioner Varinder Kumar Sharma told IANS.

“The shopkeepers of the area informed the police about the suspicious vehicle. We cordoned off the area,” he added.

“One detonator and two packets of explosives, weighing nearly two kg, were recovered from the vehicle. The packets have been sent to the laboratory to ascertain their exact content and the nature of the explosives.

“An extensive search operation has been launched in the area,” he added.

Police deployed sniffer dogs and bomb disposal squads in the area.

Police sources said that besides explosives, a cooking gas cylinder was also found inside the car.

Hundreds of passengers commute through the railway station in Amritsar, 217 km from Chandigarh and 28 km from the Wagah border with Pakistan.

Although, so far, no particular terrorist outfit has taken the responsibility, police believe this incident was part of the attempt of Babbar Khalsa International (BKI) and Khalistani Liberation Force (KLF) elements to revive terrorism in Punjab.

Notably, it is the third such incident in the recent times.

Earlier, in January this year, an explosive device was found in a Maruti car near Indian Air Force’s (IAF) Halwara base in Jagraon town.

Again in January, two grenades were discovered near an IAF station near Zirakpur town. In the same month, a bomb was found outside an Indian Oil liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) bottling plant in Nabha town in Patiala district.

Senior police officials have expressed apprehensions over the re-grouping of various terrorist organisations in the state.

On April 24, two Pakistani intruders were gunned down by police in Norat Jaimal Singh area of Gurdaspur district after a fierce gun battle that left two police personnel dead and one injured.