Three held for planning to target suspects in sacrilege cases in Punjab, weapons seized

Police on Friday arrested three people who allegedly were planning to target the suspects in sacrilege of Guru Granth Sahib in Punjab. The police also seized two .32 calibre pistols, 3 magazines and 14 cartridges from their possession.

Acting on a specific input, a police party from State Special Operations Cell (SSOC) made the arrests from near the bus stand. The accused have been identified as Baljit Singh Shri Hargobindpur, who was residing in Ajnala of Amritsar district; Jagdev Singh alias Jagga of Fatehgarh Sabhra of Ferozepur district, residing in Baba Bakala; and Manjit Singh of Jhadunangal village near Khalchian of Amritsar district.

A case has been registered against the trio under Section 25 of the Arms Act at SSOC police station here, a release said. They were produced in a court on Friday and taken into three-day police remand.

Officials said the accused are associated with different radical organisations. “The trio got in touch with each other through Facebook and was planning to target the sacrilege suspects. To execute the plan, they procured the weapons from Indore. The identity of the supplier is being ascertained,” officials said.

Baljit worked as a Granthi at a gurdwara in Nagpur for about 4 years and shifted to Ajnala recently, the release said. Some literature relating to different radical organisations have been seized from his house. Baljit had also visited Thailand in September 2018.

Manjit had been in Malaysia from 2012 to April 2018 and came in contact with Baljit in India. Jagdev had also visited Malaysia in February 2019.

The officials said investigations are on to find out the contacts in India and abroad. “There is possibility of more arrests as the probe progresses,” officials said.