Chandigarh, December 25:
A former policeman who was suspected to be the bomber in a court complex explosion in Punjab’s Ludhiana wanted to destroy records in a drugs case filed against him, sources have said.
The suspect, Gagandeep Singh, was killed in the blast. A head constable, he was dismissed from service in 2019 and spent two years in jail following his arrest in a drug-trafficking case. He was released in September.
Gagandeep Singh was scheduled to appear in court in the drugs case filed against him, sources have told . He made a plan to destroy the court records room where case papers were stored, sources said.
The former head constable was apparently assembling the bomb in a court bathroom when it went off, sources said, adding it is not yet known from where he got the material to make the improvised explosive device, or IED.
The blast caused a water pipe to burst, which washed away some residual explosives that could have come in handy as vital clues.
Two friends of Gagandeep Singh and his brother have been detained for questioning by the police. A laptop has been seized from his house.
Gagandeep Singh’s SIM card and a wireless dongle helped identify him and the family too have confirmed that the body was of him, sources said yesterday.
The disclosure bolstered Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi’s statement that there appeared to be no evidence of the involvement of Pakistani agencies or Khalistani groups in the blast, and instead have ties to the drugs case in which former minister Bikram Majithia has been named.
At the court hearing in Mohali, Akali Dal leader Bikram Majithia was seeking advance bail after having been named in a case for allegedly allowing drug smuggling through the use of his property or conveyance, financing the distribution or sale of drugs and criminal conspiracy for smuggling narcotics.
