Amidst the ongoing drive to make Punjab a safe and secure state as per directions of Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann, Punjab Police’s Anti Gangster Task Force (AGTF) successfully foiled a major terror plot backed by Pakistan’s ISI and orchestrated by Harwinder Rinda, a Babbar Khalsa International (BKI) operative based in Pakistan, with recovery of large cache of terrorist hardware from a forest area in Gurdaspur, said Director General of Police (DGP) Punjab Gaurav Yadav here on Wednesday.
The recovered cache of terrorist hardware includes two AK-47 rifles along with 16 live cartridges and two magazines, and two P-86 hand grenades.
DGP Gaurav Yadav said that preliminary investigation has revealed that the recovered consignment was pushed into India by Pakistani agencies and Harwinder Rinda as part of a premeditated plan to carry out attacks at multiple locations in Punjab, aiming to disrupt public peace.
Acting swiftly on human intelligence, AGTF teams under the overall supervision of Additional Director General of Police (ADGP) AGTF Promod Ban managed to trace the terrorist hardware consignment from a forest area in Gurdaspur, before it could reach to the operatives of Harwinder Rinda, said the DGP, while adding that further investigations are on to identify the operatives, who supposed to retrieve the consignment.
Sharing more details, Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) AGTF Gurmeet Chauhan said that probe has also revealed the involvement of foreign-based terrorists in this Pak-ISI backed module. Recoveries of more arms consignments are likely in coming days, he added.
The DIG said that an FIR under under the relevant sections of the Explosives Act and the Arms Act has been registered at Police Station Purana Shala in Gurdaspur.