Chandigarh: The Chandigarh police are investigating the possible involvement of a gangster-terror module in the case of a low-intensity blast in a residential house in Sector 10, Chandigarh, Wednesday.
The police suspect Pakistan-based gangster-turned-militant Harvinder Singh Rinda is behind the attack. Retired Punjab Police officer Jaskirat Singh Chahal, who lived in the house till 2023, was the likely target.
After the blast, the police arrested a suspect and released pictures of two men in their 20s, announcing a Rs 2 lakh reward for any information on them.
The suspects hurled an explosives-filled, pressurised container at House No. 575 in Sector 10 at 6 pm on Wednesday. The family of a 95-year-old retired professor — currently living in the house — narrowly escaped. The family members initially reported the container as a hand grenade.
The police said three suspects in an auto stopped on the road outside the house and lobbed the explosive into the porch cum lawn before leaving in the auto. CCTV footage from a nearby house — released by the police — shows the auto speeding away, nearly banging into a red car on the road.
Speaking to the media after the blast, Senior Superintendent of Police (Chandigarh) Kanwardeep Kaur said it is too early to confirm whether the suspects used a grenade. “What exactly was the thing that caused the blast can only be ascertained after a report by the forensic teams,” she said.
The police identified the arrested man as Kuldeep, the auto driver. During initial interrogation, Kuldeep said two boys hired his auto from Sector 43 bus stand to take them to the Sector 10 house. He was unaware of what the two intended, Kuldeep told the police, but when they threw the explosive, he got scared and drove away as fast as he could. The two boys jumped out of his auto later near Sector 17.
Chahal has featured on the hit list of Sikh militants for the past several years. Chahal, along with his family, lived in the house on the first floor as tenants till March last year. Afterwards, they shifted to Jalandhar.
Police sources said the initial investigation points towards a possible connection between the Wednesday blast and the arrest of four persons of a gangster-terror module in October 2023 by the Punjab Police state special operation cell (SSOC).
The four belonged to a module backed by Rinda and operated by US-based gangster Harpreet Singh alias Happy Passia and planned to eliminate Chahal, the police said at the time. The police had recovered a .32 bore pistol, along with 10 live cartridges, from them.
This module carried out a recce of the Sector 10 house in September 2023, according to the police. Three of the men in the module were from Amritsar and one from Batala.
Apart from the Chandigarh police working on the case with the Punjab Police, a National Investigation Agency (NIA) team has also started an investigation into the blast.
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Who are Chahal and Rinda?
Chahal retired from the police force as senior superintendent. He appeared on the hit list of Sikh militants in February 1986 during his posting as the Nakodar station house officer.
At the time, four Sikh youths of the All India Sikh Students Federation died in the infamous Nakodar police firing incident. The AISSF was holding a march against the sacrilege of Guru Granth Sahib in a Nakobar gurudwara when the incident happened. Radical Sikh bodies allege that whereas three protesters were killed on the spot, one survived the initial spray of bullets, but Chahal killed him a day later.
Police sources said the Rinda gang seemed to have been put on the job to harm Chahal after that incident. Rinda is among the most-wanted criminals in India, facing multiple cases — one of them for attacking the Punjab Police intelligence headquarters in May 2022 with a rocket-propelled grenade.
In November 2022, reports said that Rinda died in Pakistan following organ failure, but no security agency in India corroborated that.
Chahal had security cover till October 2017 when the Punjab government withdrew his security. Chahal challenged the orders in the Punjab and Haryana High Court on the grounds of being a decorated police officer.
He said he got the police medal for gallantry in November 1987 after apprehending militant Gurminder Singh alias Nutty, who tried to escape after firing at a police party with the service rifle of a head constable, killing two constables.
Chahal also told the court that he played a vital role in preventing communal riots in Nakodar in February 1986.
However, in 2022, a division bench of the High Court upheld the decision of the Punjab government on the grounds one can not claim personal security cover as a matter of right for perpetuity. The court said the state police intelligence wing also reported no dangers to the petitioner’s life.
In June 2020, when the Chahal family still lived in the Sector 10 house, they faced a burglary incident. Chahal’s son Lovekirat told the police that burglars entered the house at night when the family was away in Jalandhar and robbed cash and gold. The police registered a case.
Lovekirat, an advocate in the Punjab and Haryana High Court, died in December 2020 at the age of 34.
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Sector 10 house
The house in Sector 10, one of the poshest sectors in Chandigarh, belongs to an elderly couple. The homeowner, Professor K.K. Malhotra, and his wife live on the ground floor with their family. Malhotra retired as a principal from an educational institution in Shimla, Himachal Pradesh.
Two tenants are also living in the house, said police sources. They are an Instagram blogger who regularly posts reels about Bitcoin investments and a woman from Nabha and her daughter.
Police said the homeowner’s family was on the lawn minutes before the explosion, which created a six-seven inch crater on the porch and shattered the windows. Neighbours told the police that the blast caused a loud sound, heard from nearly half a kilometre away.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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