Punjab police arrest key accused in Bathinda train blast

The Punjab police have achieved a major breakthrough in the Bathinda train bomb blast case with the arrest of an International Sikh Youth Federation activist Buta Singh involved in several cases.

Punjab police chief P C Dogra said Buta Singh confessed that he had conspired and planted bombs on the Bathinda train and at a Baghapurana temple. Bhupinder Singh alias Bhinda was also nabbed from Bathinda on Friday night.

The police chief said one .38 bore pistol along with 17 cartridges were recovered from Buta Singh at the time of his arrest. One grenade, similar to the one lobbed at the temple, and two kg of RDX and some fabricating material for making bombs were recovered from his fields in Kaleke village in Moga district.

Buta Singh also disclosed that the blast was masterminded by Jagtar Singh, a resident of Kaleke, and Lakhbir Singh Rode. He said that Bhupinder Singh had links with Rode's ISYF.

Buta Singh revealed that six-seven kg of RDX was used in the Bathinda train blast, the police chief said.

He said Bhupinder Singh, a proclaimed offender who fled to Malaysia in 1991 on a fictitious passport, was recently sent back to India with instructions from Rode and Pakistan's ISI to create terror and panic in Punjab by killing innocent people.

Dogra said Buta Singh had been apprehended after it was established that some suspicious persons had taken shelter in his house after the blast.

Buta Singh was absconding when his house was raided, and a massive manhunt led to his arrest, the DGP said. The two policemen who had arrested him, assistant sub-inspector Jugraj Singh and head constable Jagtar Singh had been promoted as sub-inspector and ASI respectively, he added.

Dogra said the police had definite information that Pakistan had sent 18 clean-shaven men to settle in Punjab. These men have been told to marry locals, set up homes and have children, so that they could provide shelter to other subversives. One such person had been arrested.

Asked if the breakthrough had debunked his and the government's earlier stand that no terrorist group in Punjab was responsible for the incidents, he said the involvement of Jammu and Kashmir militant groups could not be ruled out.

UNI

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