FIR belies ‘no blast’ claim of Batala cops
The FIR pertaining to the explosion that took place in a Batala police station on Thursday night laid bare the claims of senior officers that “no blast had taken place whatsoever”.
At 10.20 pm on Thursday, an explosion rocked the Ghanian-Ke-Bangar police station shattering the windowpanes of the building, leading to a “big financial loss”. The incident had sent shock waves among police officials. Residents steadfastly maintained the line “that if a police station was not safe, how come they were safe?”
Sensing the sensitivity of the issue, police officials went on an overdrive to downplay the occurrence. In the morning following the incident, they maintained “there was no explosion at all”. By evening, they had changed the track and held that “only a flash had been seen”. The word ‘explosion’ was not heard from them throughout the day.
The cops could have prolonged their deception but for the fact that today morning a section of the media procured a copy of the FIR. Registered on the night of December 12, the document clearly blowed the lid off the claims by officers.
The report, registered on a complaint by SHO Gurminder Singh, stated “a blast had taken place at 10.20 pm with the intention of killing the staff on duty in the police station”.
It also disclosed that the intensity of the explosion was such that “windowpanes of the police station building were shattered and although there were no casualties, the blast caused a huge financial loss”.
The SHO added that he was on night duty checking police stations falling in the jurisdiction of the Dera Baba Nanak subdivision when he received a call from night munshi Navdeep Singh informing him of the blast.
A case under Sections 109 (murder), 324 (4) (punishment for causing damage) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and Sections 4 and 5 of the Explosives Act have been clamped against the miscreants.
The Babbar Khalsa International (BKI), a militant organisation, had claimed the responsibility of the blast in a social media post.
A few days ago, there was a similar blast in the Majitha police station but officers were quick to label it a “tyre-burst”. Like the Ghanian-Ke Bangar blast, the responsibility of the Majitha incident was also taken by the BKI.
