NIA names 7 Khalistani operatives in Amritsar hand grenades case

New Delhi (IANS): The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Monday filed a charge sheet against seven Khalistani operatives in connection with the seizure of two hand grenades from Punjab’s Amritsar.

An NIA spokesperson here said that the agency filed a charge sheet against Jajbir Singh Samra aka Jazz, a resident of Tarn Taran, Varinder Singh Chahal, a resident of Amritsar, Kulbir Singh from Ludhiana, Taranbir Singh aka Khanpuria also a resident of Amritsar, Kulwinderjit Singh aka Khanpuria, an operative of Babbar Khalsa International (BKI) and Harmeet Singh aka PhD, a Pakistan based self-styled chief of Khalistan Liberation Force (KLF) under several sections of the Indian Penal Code, Explosive Substances Act and UA (P) Act in the NIA Special Court in Punjab’s Mohali.

The official said that during the probe it was found that Jajbir Singh Samra and Varinder Singh Chahal were part of a narco-terror module involved in distributing the heroin smuggled from Pakistan in order to channelise the proceeds of the drug trafficking to various terrorist entities on the directions of Pakistan based terrorist Harmeet Singh aka PhD.

The official said that Samra and Chahal had also picked up grenades and concealed them at a pre-decided location for carrying out terrorist acts to further the conspiracy hatched by Harmeet Singh and Kulwinderjit Singh.

The official said that the probe has also revealed that Kulbir Singh, Manjit Kaur and Taranbir Singh had harboured and provided logistics support including accommodation, and a business visa for Kulwinderjit Singh in Cambodia and Malaysia when he had escaped from India.

The NIA registered a case on June 2, 2019 pertaining to seizure of two hand grenades and one Samsung mobile phone from a bag recovered by Punjab Police which was thrown by two unknown motorcycle riders at Harsha Cheena bus stop in Amritsar (Rural) when they were stopped by a police party during regular checking.

The NIA had taken over the probe later.