Suspected Grenade Attack On Temple By Two Bike-Borne Miscreants In Punjab’s Amritsar (Screengrab) X/PTI/ANI | X/PTI/ANI
Chandigarh: Panic gripped the Khandwala area of Amritsar city after an explosion took place outside Thakur Dwara temple in the wee hours of Saturday.
The CCTV footage of the incident showed two motorcycle borne masked suspects reaching the spot and lobbing the grenade at the temple, which is located on the Sher Shah Suri road. The two suspects waited for a few seconds after reaching the spot around 12:5 am and then one of them threw the explosive at the temple, before fleeing the spot.
While only the wall of the temple was damaged in the blast, no injuries were reported; The temple priest and his family members, who live on the upper floor, were unharmed.
Notably, the incident shook the police as it marked a shift to targeting a religious site as earlier a recent spate of such incidents aimed at the police establishment. There were said to be over 12 grenade throwing incidents reported from different parts of the state in the past about four months.
Senior police officials who rushed to the spot after the explosion held that a forensic team had collected samples from the spot and a thorough investigation is on.
ATTEMPTS TO DISTURB STATE: CM
Meanwhile, reacting to the blast at the temple in Amritsar, chief minister Bhagwant Mann said that attempts were being made to disturb peace in the border state of Punjab.
Stating that there are always attempts to disturb the peace in Punjab and drugs, gangsters and extortion are part of it and there are attempts to show that Punjab has become a disturb state. The law and order situation in Punjab is good, he held.
Union minister Ravneet Singh Bittu also condemned the attack on the temple and said on the X: “…….. AAP government fails to check repeated incidents of blasts in border city. Deteriorating law and order in Punjab is matter of serious concern’’.
However, the Amritsar commissioner of police (CP) Gurpreet Singh Bhullar held that Pakistan’s ISI lures youngsters to create disturbance in Punjab and the police will trace this case within days and take appropriate action.
OPPN CONDEMNS ATTACK
Meanwhile, state Congress chief Amarinder Singh Raja Warring said on X: “Yet another grenade attack in Amritsar, this time targeting a temple in the Khandwala area. There is an atmosphere of fear prevailing in Punjab and people are genuinely feeling insecure. It’s high time the @AAPPunjab government wakes from its deep slumber and takes action’’.
The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) also strongly condemned the incident and demanded a judicial probe to identify the perpetrators and unearth the conspiracy aimed at disturbing peace and communal harmony in the state.
Demanding a CBI probe into the incident, the BJP leaders held that the AAP government had failed on all fronts.
