Grenade attack on temple rattles Amritsar

Two bike-borne persons hurled a hand grenade at Thakur Dwara temple located on the Sher Shah Suri Road in the Khandwala area late last night, causing panic among local residents. This marks the first incident in which miscreants have targeted a religious place in the region.

A CCTV footage of the incident revealed that two unidentified individuals arrived on a motorcycle adorned with flags and one of them threw the explosive toward the first floor of the temple complex. The attack took place around 12:30 am.

This is the 13th hand grenade blast in Punjab over the past four months. Previously, such attacks primarily targeted police establishments and carried out by overground workers linked to foreign-based gangsters-turned-terrorists, allegedly supported by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

Senior police officials, led by Commissioner Gurpreet Singh Bhullar, reached the spot. Teams from the State Special Operation Cell (SSOC) also joined the probe.

Temple priest Murari Lal Sharma stated that his room was located on the opposite side of the floor where the blast occurred. He recounted that after being alerted by others, he came out of his room to find the temple walls damaged by the explosion. “Initially, we couldn’t comprehend what had happened. After reviewing the CCTV footage, we realised that two individuals on a motorcycle carried out the attack,” he said.

Karanpreet Singh, a local resident, said targeting a temple was a deliberate attempt to disrupt the peaceful atmosphere of the holy city, where communities have long coexisted harmoniously. He urged the police to take stringent action and apprehend the perpetrators.

Police Commissioner Gurpreet Singh Bhullar confirmed that the police were informed about the blast by the temple priest around 2 am, after which a team was dispatched to the site. He emphasised that Pakistan-based agencies had persistently sought to destabilise Punjab. “We have successfully resolved all previous blast cases in Amritsar and this case will also be cracked soon with the arrest of the suspects. Forensic teams have collected samples from the spot to determine the material used in the attack,” he added.