Grenade blast at Punjab BJP leader’s house: Main accused arrested from Delhi, was hired by Baba Siddique murder conspirator

“Ameen was in regular contact with fugitive Jeeshan Akhtar, also the mastermind behind the murder of Maharashtra leader Baba Siddique. Akhtar is suspected to be operating either from Azerbaijan or Europe,” a source in the police said.

Addressing mediapersons after the attack, Punjab Special DGP (Law and Order) Arpit Shukla had said that gangster Zeeshan Akhtar – a known associate of jailed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi, and Pakistani gangster Shehzad Bhatti – were behind the attack.

Following a tip-off received by a Delhi Police Special Cell team from Northern Range, a team led by Inspectors Ravi Tushir and Puran Pant – under the supervision of DCP Amit Kaushik and ACP Rahul Singh – raided the hotel along with Punjab Police personnel and arrested Ameen from his room on Saturday.

An officer said that Ameen was instructed to destroy his cellphone and shave his head after the attack at Kalia’s house. “He was also told to go underground for a few days and await for instructions for another job… Ameen was contacted via Instagram and hired to do throw grenade outside Kalia’s residence for Rs 50,000. He received the money in installments from different accounts via UPI transactions.”

According to the officer, Ameen was instructed to collect the grenade from a locality in Amritsar. “He hired an e-rickshaw for Rs 1,500, threw the grenade outside Kalia’s residence and fled,” he said. Another source in the police said Ameen watched YouTube videos to learn how to throw grenades.

The Punjab Police had on April 8 claimed to have solved the case within 12 hours with the arrest of two persons. They had also recovered the e-rickshaw used in the attack. They had suspected that Pakistan’s intelligence agency ISI, along with Babbar Khalsa International, was behind the attack and wanted to create communal disturbance in the state. Kalia was home at the time of the explosion, but was not harmed.