CHANDIGARH: A third low-intensity blast occurred near Golden Temple in Amritsar late last night. Meanwhile, the Punjab Police has arrested five alleged suspects including a newly-wed couple, and solved all three blast cases.
Sources said that this blast took place around 12.30 PM on the intervening night of Wednesday and Thursday at the Galliara area (pathway around the Golden Temple) near Guru Ram Das Inn (Sarai) in the vicinity of the Golden Temple. In the CCTV footage, one could see that the suspect allegedly threw the bomb from the window of a washroom on the second floor of the Inn into Galiara.
Among the accused who have been arrested included a newly-wed couple who were staying in room number 225 of the Inn and two bags and also some torn papers were recovered from them by the police.
In a few minutes, the local police reached the spot and also the forensic teams were called and the area was cordoned off. It took the police about half an hour to locate the exact spot where this explosion took place.
Shiromani Gurdwara Parbhandak Committee (SGPC) President Harjinder Singh Dhami that the SGPC staffers including Tajinder Singh who were on duty rushed to the spot after today’s blast that appeared on one of the cameras. As they reached the spot, the accused had already left. "Our staffer came back to the CCTV room and rolled back the particular footage only to zero in on one of the suspected accused.
Since the whole area in and around the holy shrine is covered with CCTV cameras, the suspect was traced and caught by our staffers. By that time, the policemen too had reached the spot and he was arrested. Later the other suspects were arrested,’’ he said.
Dhami announced enhancing vigil and setting up CCTV cameras in and around the Golden Temple as he termed that the policing was inefficient. "In the span of six days, three explosions took place in close proximity to each and the police remained clueless. This shows its inefficiency. The SGPC will install CCTV cameras on the entire stretch of Heritage Street that leads to the Golden Temple,’’ he said.
Dhami said that it was a deep-rooted conspiracy, apparently politically influenced. He said that these incidents had created a sense of fear among the devotees but he appealed to the devotees not to panic.
This was the third blast near the golden temple in the last four days. Earlier two low-intensity blasts have taken place both at the same spot near the Saragarhi multistory parking on Heritage Street. The first blast took place around midnight on Saturday and the second blast took place at 6.30 AM on Monday morning.
There is no breakthrough for the police in the two blasts which took place earlier. In those blasts, the explosives were packed in two 250 ml cans of a health drink called `Hell’.
The National Security Guard (NSG) and National Investigation Agency (NIA) teams had visited the spot on Heritage Street where the earlier two blasts took place. Both NSG and NIA officials had held meetings with the officers of the Punjab Police to have first-hand knowledge of the incident and they were focusing
what could be the motive behind the blast and were studying the explosive material forensically as well as to analyze the site of the explosions for more clues.
The team from the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) has collected the evidence and was examining the material collected.