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Panic gripped Chandigarh’s posh Sector 10 area on Wednesday evening as two persons in an autorickshaw lobbed an explosive, suspected to be a hand grenade, in the front verandah of a house here.
The house, number 575, belongs to KK Malhotra, aged 100, who had retired as the principal in an institute in Himachal Pradesh. Malhotra and his wife narrowly escaped the blast as they had been sitting in the verandah a few minutes before the incident and had gone inside the house just before the accused struck.
The explosion resulted in damage to some glass windows and flower pots kept in the verandah. Teams of the bomb detection squad and the Central Forensic Science Laboratory were rushed to the spot after the incident.
A 30-second CCTV footage from the vicinity shows a man, in white T-shirt, running away from the house and seconds later, an explosion rocking the place. The man is further seen getting into an auto, which left the scene immediately, narrowly avoiding collision with a car coming from the opposite direction. Later in the evening, police impounded the auto rickshaw, bearing a Punjab registration number, and arrested its driver, identified as Kuldeep. He was being interrogated for leads regarding the two occupants of the rickshaw, at the time of filing of the report.
UT senior superintendent of police Kanwardeep Kaur, in a statement, said, “A pressure blast occurred in House No 575 of Sector 10 that caused a loud sound. Some flowerpots and windows were damaged due to the pressure blast. Significant leads have been gained and one suspect has been nabbed. Further investigation is on.”
As per sources, a retired Punjab superintendent of police (SP) Jaskirat Singh Chahal was the possible target of the attack, as he resided on the first floor of the house about two years ago. The SP was active during the militancy years in Punjab, and the UT police had earlier got information about a planned attack on the SP and shared this information with Punjab police.
In October last year, the State Special Operation Cell (SSOC) of Punjab Police had arrested four members of terror module backed by Pakistan-based terrorist Harwinder Singh Rinda who had allegedly been tasked with eliminating the SP.
Chandigarh Police have announced a ₹2 lakh reward for anyone providing information leading to the arrest of other suspects involved in the case.
With inputs from Nikhil Sharma in Mohali
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