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What TV doesn't, print can't; we deliver.
At least 10 police personnel were present inside the police station when the attack took place at around 1 am on Saturday. In May this year, a similar RPG was fired at the Punjab Police’s intelligence headquarters in Mohali.
The rocket-propelled grenade fired at Sarhali police station in Punjab’s Tarn Taran district was Russia-made 125 mm single-shot artillery, designed to penetrate the walls of the government building, in the second such attack in the border state in the last five months.
At least 10 police personnel were present inside the police station when the attack took place at around 1 am on Saturday. In May this year, a similar RPG was fired at the Punjab Police’s intelligence headquarters in Mohali.
Sources in the Punjab Police intelligence department and Tarn Taran district said that the mastermind of the attack is being suspected as Canada-based notorious Khalistani ultra Lakhbir Singh alias Landa, who was also behind the Mohali attack on May 9. Landa is also from Tarn Taran’s Harike village which stands 12 kilometres from Sarhali.
“We have strong reasons to suspect that the men behind these attacks are in Pakistan and belong to the same Harwinder Rinda and Landa gang. We had some success in October when the Maharashtra Police helped us by bringing Charat Singh as one of the accused in the Mohali attack,” said a senior Punjab Police officer who was supervising the probe in Tarn Taran.
“One Satpreet Satta along with 150 such aides of Rinda are under lens. Satta is suspected to be in Europe. Most of them are getting support from Pakistan,” the officer further said.
The photos accessed by The New Indian, show the numbers 4-86 and PK (in a reference to Pakistan) on the shell of the RPG recovered from the site.
The rocket hit a pillar and the wall of the police station, damaging it slightly.
Tarn Taran had recently seen a change of guard with a new SSP Gurmeet Singh Chauhan, a Punjab Police Services (PPS) officer taking charge. Chauhan was at the helm of busting several gangster networks in the state while working closely with the intelligence department of the Punjab Police and his own gangster task force. Chauhan took the charge last week after returning from Australia.
Punjab Police ADGP Amit Prasad, who is heading the counter-intelligence wing in the state, was on his way to Sarhali. Prasad, who has earlier served in ITBP and worked closely in both SAD and Congress regimes during the last 8 years, has been at forefront of several counter-terror operations.
The overnight attack, however, has raised several questions on the preparedness of the Punjab Police which is struggling to find a permanent police chief after a temporary charge was given to 1992-batch IPS Gaurav Yadav, superseding several seniors in the state. Yadav, at one stage, had enjoyed close proximity to the Akali Dal regime when he was given plum postings in the intelligence headquarters by then deputy CM Sukhbir Badal as his blue-eyed boy.
Punjab Police is facing routine wrangling between senior cops after IPS officers of the 1987 to 1991 batches have either moved to Delhi on central deputation.
It is not clear if UPSC will allow Yadav to continue as several eligible IPS officers are in the fray to become the DGP.
