Dehradun: A team of Uttarakhand special task force (STF) on Saturday arrested 4 people who were accused of harbouring conspirators involved in the 2021 Pathankot grenade blasts in Punjab. The police also confiscated a 32 bore pistol and 4 live cartridges along with an exploded luxury car from the accused arrested from Udham Singh Nagar. The arrested include Shamsher Singh alias Shera, and his brothers Harpreet Singh alias Happy, Ajmer Singh alias Ladi Mand and Gurpal Singh alias Gurri Dhillon.
The arrests were initiated when the team of officials received confidential input that the natives who sheltered Sukhpreet alias Sukh, the key conspirator of the blasts in Punjab, are currently in Udham Singh Nagar of Uttarakhand. The district police, including STF, were deployed accordingly at the suspected sites. For the last three days, Uttarakhand STF worked on gathering information about the accused with the available leads, for which they also scrutinized the CCTV camera footages installed in the area. With all the leads and three days of crucial investigation, the four were arrested.
A case has been registered against all four of them at the Pantnagar police station in Udham Singh Nagar district under the Section 19 of the UAPA and Arms Act, as informed by the ASP Barinder Jeet Singh.
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During interrogation, it came to light that the four arrested persons were connected with each other as well as to other sources in Canada, Australia and Serbia through internet/WhatsApp calls. The four were receiving instructions from the other terrorists present in these countries. These people have been confirmed to be operated by Arsh, who is a Canada resident from the Khalistan Tiger Force (KTF), and was also connected with the four accused via internet calls.
While the further investigation in the matter is underway, whatever information is being received from the accused is being circulated across various national agencies and state police to procure more leads to capture Sukhpreet. Some of the information has been kept confidential keeping in view the national interest, as informed by the officials.
Last year in November 2021, there were incidents of bomb blasts in Pathankot, Nawanshahr and Ludhiana in Punjab. The Punjab Police had earlier arrested six accused in the matter while one of the accused Sukhpreet alias Sukh was absconding. The police recently got leads about the absconding terrorist's helpers in Udham Nagar, followed by which the arrests were made on Saturday.
