Seven-day police custody for 2 suspects in Jalandhar blast case

Jalandhar: A Jalandhar court on Friday remanded two suspects arrested in connection with the May 5 blast outside the BSF Punjab Frontier headquarters to seven days of police custody.While sources said the accused, Anil Kumar of Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh, and Umardin of Mohali, were assigned independent roles by their handlers and did not know each other, senior police officials have failed to issue an official statement even a day after the arrests. This silence is unusual, given the standard practice of holding press briefings for far less high-profile cases. It is learnt that police officers find themselves in a piquant situation due to a bitter political exchange between the governing AAP and the BJP after CM Bhagwant Mann on May 6 linked the twin blasts — just hours after the explosion in Jalandhar, a second blast occurred near the Army cantonment in Amritsar — to the BJP. The same day, DGP Gaurav Yadav attributed the nefarious activities to Pakistan's ISI, prompting the opposition to highlight the contradiction between the CM's and the DGP's claims. On May 6, the public relations department sent a message to journalists in Jalandhar informing that the DGP would address the media at 2pm after inspecting the blast site. However, as the controversy intensified, the DGP left immediately after meeting with BSF officials and inspecting the site, leaving Jalandhar commissioner of police Dhanpreet Kaur to brief the media instead. MSID:: 131120159 413 |