Chandigarh blast case: Main accused arrested in Amritsar
9mm Glock pistol along with ammunition recovered from him, while second accused also identified, says Punjab DGP
Punjab Police on Friday arrested the main accused of the blast at a house in the upscale Sector 10 of Chandigarh on September 11.
The suspect was identified as Rohan Masih of Passia village in Amritsar rural. A 9mm Glock pistol along with ammunition were recovered from him.
“Punjab Police has arrested the main perpetrator of the Chandigarh grenade blast case, in a joint operation with a central agency. The case is solved with the nabbing of Rohan Masih, resident of village Passia, PS Ramdass, Amritsar Rural and identification of the other accused as well,” Punjab Police DGP Gaurav Yadav posted on X.
Masih was one of the two accused who allegedly hurled a grenade at the house in Sector 10, Chandigarh, on Wednesday evening.
Police sources said he worked as a carpenter in Jammu and Kashmir along with the second accused.
“Further investigation to unravel the entire conspiracy is being conducted jointly with the Chandigarh Police,” the Punjab director general of police said, adding the accused is in the custody of the state special operation cell (#SSOC) in Amritsar
During interrogation, Rohan admitted his role in the blast.
Khalistan link emerges
The arrest comes a day after a social media post under the name of US-based Khalistani gangster Harpreet Singh, alias Happy Passia, claimed responsibility for the explosion, targeted at retired superintendent of police Jaskirat Singh Chahal to avenge encounters during the decade of militancy in Punjab.
Police officials said that Chahal had been on the radar of Sikh militants since February 1986, when he served as the station house officer (SHO) in Nakodar.
During his tenure, four Sikh activists of the All-India Sikh Students Federation (AISSF) were killed in the 1986 Nakodar police firing. The activists were part of a protest march condemning the desecration of Guru Granth Sahib at a Nakodar gurdwara on February 4, 1986.
The police sources say that Pakistan-based Babbar Khalsa International terrorist Harwinder Singh Rinda and his gang were tasked with targeting Chahal after the 1986 incident.
Until two years ago, he had been living on rent on the first floor of the Sector 10 house.
The targeted property belongs to KK Malhotra, aged 100, who had retired as the principal of an institute in Himachal Pradesh. Malhotra and his wife escaped unhurt. They had been sitting in the verandah a few minutes before the incident and had gone inside the house just before the blast occurred.
Plotted attack in 2023, too
The Rinda module had plotted the retired SP’s assassination in 2023 also. Last year, the Punjab Police SSOC had arrested four operatives from a terror module operated by gangster Harpreet Singh and backed by Rinda, whose involvement was detected in the RPG attack on the Punjab Police intelligence headquarters in Mohali on May 8, 2022.
According to police, in 2023, the module had plotted to assassinate retired SP Chahal to avenge the 1986 incident. The module had reportedly conducted a recce of Chahal’s Sector 10 house in September 2023.
Passia had allegedly struck a deal with an accused, Vikramjit Singh, offering him ₹15 lakh to carry out the target killing. At the time of the arrests, police had recovered a .32-bore pistol and 10 live cartridges. The four operatives were from Amritsar and Batala.
Chandigarh Police have established a connection between this recent attack and the 2023 assassination plot targeting Chahal, and as per their information, it is the same terror group that previously attempted to harm the retired SP.