What TV doesn't, print can't; we deliver.
What TV doesn't, print can't; we deliver.
NEW DELHI: Unknown men fired at heavily-guarded Punjab Police intelligence headquarters in Mohali’s sector 77 on late Monday evening in a daring attack, stoking memories of a dreadful strike by pro-Khalistani outfits in 1995 leading to the killing of then Punjab CM Beant Singh.
Sources in Punjab Police said that a Rocket Propelled Grenade (RPG)-like weapon was used to drill into one of the offices on the third-floor building of intelligence headquarters.
The windows and ceiling of the police room were shattered by the splinters of the RPG. The New Indian has accessed the photographs of the launcher and the damage inside the intelligence headquarters.
The incident also comes barely four months after an attack in Ludhiana court complex had raised concerns on security arrangements of government buildings in Punjab despite several terror alerts sent by the Centre and ignored by Punjab Police officials, risking lives of commoners and own officials.
During both attacks, a controversial IPS and a promoted Punjab Police Services (PPS) officer Gurpreet Bhullar, has been in charge of the area. While he was serving Ludhiana as commissioner of police during the December attack, he has now been given plum postings of DIG (Ropar Range) under which Mohali district operates. Questions have been raised on transfers and postings of Bhullar, who sits over a declared assets of Rs 152-crore, in key districts of Punjab.
At the time of the explosion, there were at least 9-10 police officials of Punjab Police’s Organised Crime Control Unit (OCCU).
“I just called up to know the well-being of my men a while back. It’s an unfortunate incident. Our team is there at the moment. Mohali Police is also separately investigating the spot,” said a senior Punjab Police official.
DGP(intelligence) Prabodh Kumar, a 1988-batch IPS, operates from the same office and sits on the fourth-floor building.
The intelligence headquarters was set up in 2016 and Punjab Police intelligence officials led by its then ADGP(intelligence) Dinkar Gupta had shifted to this office in 2017.
The attack on the intelligence building comes less than two weeks after deadly clashes in Patiala during an anti-Khalistan march in which four people had been injured. The clash outside the Kali Mata temple had ‘brought two factions – Shiv Sena (Bal Thackeray) and Niihang Sikhs in an ugly-face off as they drew swords and hurled stones at each other, forcing police to fire in the air.
