A grenade attack occurred in Pathankot at the Indian Army’s cantonment area near the Triveni gate. This grenade attack occurred near Pathankot’s Dheerapul late on Sunday on 21st November 2021. The police said that the grenade was thrown by assailants who were on a bike and threw the grenade near the Triveni Gate around 10 p.m. on Sunday. The police mentioned that no casualties have been reported. The entire area across the district has sounded a red alert after the grenade attack. The police have been verifying the CCTV footage of the entire area. Search operations are being carried out to nab the suspects.
Surinder Lamba, the Superintendent of Police, told during an interview, “The hand grenade attack took place close to 9 p.m. on Sunday near the Triveni gate of the Army’s cantonment. There has been no casualty. We are screening the CCTV images. So far, no arrest has been made and investigations are underway’’. He also mentioned that they are leaving nothing to jeopardize the security in Pathankot and the neighbouring areas. Local police officials have recovered the parts of the grenade from the attack site near the Triveni Gate. The police haven’t publicized any further information regarding the investigation.
Pathankot shares an international border with Pakistan. Pathankot has been the centre of a major terrorist attack in 2016. Heavily armed terrorists sneaked in from across the border and attacked Pathankot’s airbase. Pathankot’s airbase was attacked by six highly armed gunmen. The gun combat went for three days straight and after three days the terrorists were neutralized and 07 security personnel lost their lives. This all started when the terrorists entered Pakistan on December 31st, 2015, and carjacked Salwinder Singh, Punjab’s cop to get into the surrounding area of the airbase.
Many similar tense incidents have occurred in the past that raise various questions about the security in Punjab. Before Independence Day 2021, Ex-Chief Minister, Captain Amrinder Singh met Amit Shah and talked about the increasing security threat activities in Punjab.
The major concern of the meeting was to seek 25 companies of CAPF (Central Armed Police Forces) to use anti-drone gadgets for BSF (Border Security Forces) for protection from Pakistan’s terror forces. Before the meeting between Captain Amrinder Singh and Amit Shah, Punjab police recovered five hand grenades, 100 rounds of 9 mm pistol, and a tiffin box from a suspicious bag from a village in Amritsar. A high alert was announced in Punjab after the recovery of life-taking weapons and ammunition.
Dinkar Gupta, Director General of Police, Punjab said “The most dangerous content of the bag was the tiffin box that had an IED (Improvised Explosive Device). It was a highly sophisticated bomb. We secured it in a pit for fear it might explode and immediately called the National Security Guard (NSG).”
The captain at that time also expressed his concerns over the farm laws and highlighted the fear of external forces across the border trying to exploit the resentment against the government.
As of now, the recent attack in Pathankot creates quite chaos and strain regarding the security concerns in Punjab.
Also Read: Revolting farmers launch their own bilingual newspaper ‘Trolley Times’
