Punjab Police foil terror plot backed by Pakistan's ISI

Chandigarh, July 9 (IANS) Punjab Director General of Police (DGP) Gaurav Yadav said here on Wednesday that the state police's Anti-Gangster Task Force (AGTF) foiled a terror plot supported by Pakistani spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and orchestrated by Harwinder Rinda, a Babbar Khalsa International (BKI) operative based in Pakistan, with recovery of terrorist hardware from forest in Gurdaspur.

The recovered cache of terrorist hardware includes two AK-47 rifles along with 16 cartridges and two magazines, and two P-86 hand grenades.

DGP 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.

In a post on social media platform X, the DGP wrote: "Acting swiftly on human intelligence, AGTF teams traced and recovered a large cache of terrorist hardware, including two AK-47 rifles with 16 live cartridges, two magazines, and two P-86 hand grenades from a forest area in #Gurdaspur, before it could reach Harwinder @ Rinda's associates."

Acting swiftly on human intelligence, AGTF teams under the overall supervision of Additional Director General of Police (ADGP) 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 further investigations are underway to identify the operatives, who were supposed to retrieve the consignment.

AGTF's Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) Gurmeet Chauhan said that probe has also revealed the involvement of foreign-based terrorists in this Pakistan-ISI-backed module.

Recoveries of more arms consignments are likely in the coming days, he added.

The DIG said that a first information report (FIR) under the relevant sections of the Explosives Act and the Arms Act has been registered at the Purana Shala police station in Gurdaspur.

Earlier on Tuesday, Jalandhar Counter Intelligence foiled a target killing plot in Punjab and Madhya Pradesh orchestrated by Lawrence Bishnoi gang with the arrest of its key operative and recovered two pistols from his possession.

The accused has been identified as Himanshu Sood, a resident of Phagwara in Kapurthala.

The recovered pistols include one .30 bore China-made PX3 Pistol and one .32 bore pistol along with two magazines and seven cartridges.

--IANS

vg/khz