Two police teams from Rajasthan arrested a man and a woman in Punjab’s Gurdaspur on Saturday, November 14, in connection with the blast on a railway track near Ramsinghpur in Sri Ganganagar district in Rajasthan on November 3.
Mahakdeep Kaur, 21, and Davinder Singh, 22, were arrested in a joint operation by Rajasthan Anti-Terror Squad (ATS) and Sri Ganganagar Police with help from Punjab Police. Two weapons, 46 cartridges, and Rs 30,000 were recovered from Kaur, who had been living separately from her husband, Karanveer Singh, who is currently in jail following arrest in a case related to drugs trafficking.
Officials said investigations have found that Kaur received payment to carry out the blast on the railway track and that she was in contact with two handlers based in Pakistan. They said it was clear now that the sabotage of the railway track was done under the direction and supervision of Inter-Services Intelligence, the primary intelligence agency of Pakistan government.
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“Mahakdeep Kaur was trapped by two Pakistani handlers who engaged in romantic conversations with her and gave her money. One of the handlers was known as ‘Chacha’ and the other called ‘Shah’. Romantic conversation for trapping Indian women for destructive anti-national work has been a trend with ISI,” said a police officer familiar with this case. ISI had used a similar ploy to entrap a woman named Babita Dhakad, a resident of Ganganagar who was arrested in June, he added.
Three other people have also been taken into custody as the ongoing investigations point out that they helped Kaur and Singh by arranging for them accommodation and a to reach the blast site, said the officer.
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The blast on the railway tracks passing through Ramsinghpur area occurred around 9:45 pm on November 3 and shattered two railway sleepers, ruined the track, and dug a crater about 2.5 feet deep. About 75 minutes before the blast, the Anupgarh-Suratgarh passenger train had passed along the same track.
Police teams led by Sri Ganganagar district SP Hari Shankar and supervised by Rajasthan’s ADGP Dinesh MN zeroed in on Kaur and Singh after taking inputs from several central probe agencies and verifying the related facts through technical examinations, including the social media accounts of the two accused. A police team led by probationary IPS officer Nitin Chaudhary, the investigating officer, and ATS Bikaner unit in-charge Surendra Kumar had visited Punjab to verify the facts and identify the two accused.
The probe has found that Kaur, the main accused, and Singh, her accomplice, had initially planned to perpetrate the blast on the railway tracks in the same area on October 6 but failed to do so as they could not arrange a bomb. The duo was then provided a timer bomb on October 12-13 by their Pakistani handler Shah, which they planted on the railway track, but a technical fault stopped it from detonating. The duo was successful on November 3, said police officials familiar with the investigation.
Kaur and Singh were found following profiles of active gangsters on social media, and they received payments online, said police officials.
