The prime accused in the grenade attack targeting BJP leader Manoranjan Kalia’s residence was arrested from Delhi on Saturday, four days after the incident sent the Jalandhar police into a tizzy.
The accused — Saidul Ameen — is a resident of Uttar Pradesh’s Amroha.
Saidul was captured by a CCTV camera while roaming freely at the Jalandhar railway station two hours after the incident in the wee hours on April 8. He was identified from the CCTV footage, which led the police to a Ludhiana hotel, where he had been staying before the incident.
According to the police, Saidul had accidently left behind his Aadhaar card in the hotel, revealing his complete identity. The second major clue to his whereabouts came from the phone calls he made to his mother.
The police said the accused chose not to stay in Jalandhar as he did not want to give his ID proof anywhere in the city.
He did the recce of the area where Kalia’s house was located for three nights in the run-up to the attack. Every day, he used to board a bus for Ludhiana.
Director General of Police (DGP) Gaurav Yadav said the arrest was made by the Jalandhar Commissionerate Police with the support of Central agencies and the Delhi Police. “Our teams are bringing him to Jalandhar. He is the same accused who was captured by CCTV cameras at the Jalandhar city railway station two hours after the attack,” said Yadav, who was accompanied by Commissioner of Police Dhanpreet Kaur in a press conference here.
The police said another major clue that Saidul left behind was his daily phone calls to his mother in UP.
Police teams had reached his home after recovering the Aadhaar card from the Ludhiana hotel and confiscated his mother’s phone, from where his location was tracked. The UPI account he had used on April 7 night was traced to be that of Abhijot, alias Abhi, in Kurukshetra.
While the Jalandhar police had already been tracking Abhijot, the CIA team of Haryana arrested him following an exchange of fire. He was arrested by the Haryana Police. Abhijot is also learnt to have provided some leads of the prime accused to the Jalandhar police.
Jalandhar Commissionerate Police will bring him on a production warrant for further investigation, Yadav said.
Yadav said the preliminary investigation revealed a larger conspiracy orchestrated by Pakistan’s ISI to disrupt communal harmony in Punjab. The development came close on the heels of the arrest of two local associates identified as Satish, alias Kaka, of Bhargo Camp in Jalandhar; and Harry of Garha Road in Jalandhar, who provided logistic support to accused Saidul Ameen.
Yadav said the plot was hatched by Zeeshan Akhtar, a close associate of gangster Lawrence Bishnoi and Pakistan-based ISI-sponsored gangster Shahzad Bhatti. “The role of Pakistan-based Babbar Khalsa International (BKI) is also being probed,” he said.
