With the arrest of five persons in connection with serial low-intensity blasts near Golden Temple in the past five days, the investigating agencies are now probing Khalistan connection. According to the investigators, radical literature has been recovered from the accused and the choice of site of blasts strongly hints at the same. DGP Gaurav Yadav while addressing the media said that Amritsar police Commissioner Naunihal Singh has been directed to form SIT to probe the blasts. The police are investigating their foreign links as well. “We will dig out their Indian and foreign links if any,” said Yadav. It was CCTV analysis by SGPC that got them to round up the accused and hand them over to police.

Those arrested are identified as Azad Veer Singh of Wadala Kalan village in Baba Bakala, Amrik Singh of Dubri village in Gurdaspur, Dharminder Singh, Harjeet Singh and Sahib Singh of Amritsar. They have reportedly confessed to all three blasts but police are yet to divulge the true motive. First blast occurred near Saragari Sarai on Heritage Street near Golden Temple on May 6 night while the second on May 8 morning. The third explosion took place at around 12.12 am last intervening night.

According to police investigation so far Azad Veer and Amrik Singh had assembled the explosives while Dharminder Singh, Harjeet Singh and Sahib were held for sourcing and providing explosives. Sahib Singh was a licensed holder of explosives used for manufacturing firecrackers. The police have also apprehended a woman whose role was being looked into. The police have recovered 1.1kg of explosive material besides some radical literature from their possession.

Azadvir and Amrik Singh were putting up in the Guru Ram Dass Sarai located in the Golden Temple complex for the past several days and it is here only that they assembled the explosives for creating crude bombs. Azad Veer conducted today’s blast when he went to the bathroom and threw the bomb on the ‘Galliara’ side behind the Sarai at around 12.12 am today. The preliminary interrogation revealed that the accused assembled 200gm of explosives in a container then suspended the same in a polythene bag from a thread from roof top of Saragarhi parking for first blast on May 6. It exploded at around 11.30pm. They then kept another bomb at the rooftop on May 8 around 4am. It was connected with a thread, which was pulled by a passer-by leading to the blast at the same spot at around 6.30am.

Azad Veer was earlier booked by Chheharta police on charges of hurting religious sentiments Dharminder had a case of NDPS act while Sahib Singh was booked under explosives act. Amirk Singh has also a criminal case against him.

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