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IANS
Amritsar
In a major terrorist incident, three people were killed and 20 others injured when two motorcycle-borne masked youths threw a grenade at a Nirankari congregation in Rajasansi area in Punjab's Amritsar district on Sunday, police said.
The grenade attack took place at the Nirankari Satsang Bhawan of the Nirankari sect in Adliwal village, about 15 km from Amritsar. The campus is located in Amritsar's rural belt, around three kilometres from the Guru Ram Das Jee Amritsar international airport.
The injured were rushed to hospitals in Amritsar. Two of them were in serious condition, police said.
All the victims were sect followers from nearby villages who had gathered for the Sunday weekly religious meeting.
Punjab Director General of Police Suresh Arora, who rushed to the spot along with senior Punjab Police officers, admitted that it was a"terror act".
"We are taking it as a terror act. This incident is against a group and not an individual. That's why we are taking it as a terror act. We did not have any specific input of a strike against any particular group," he told the media in Adliwal village.
Describing it as an unfortunate incident, Arora said that further investigations will reveal details about who was behind the attack.
Witnesses told the police that two youths on a motorcycle, their faces covered, forced entry to the sect campus by pointing a pistol at a woman volunteer at the gate."Everything happened within a couple of minutes. They got in, threw the grenade and fled," one man told the police.
Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Sunday directed the police to immediately enhance security arrangements at all sensitive places, terming it as"the first such indiscriminate attack on innocent people in recent past".
"Preliminary investigations had so far revealed that two men, one of them with a flowing beard, with covered faces, allegedly forced their way into the hall by brandishing a pistol. They detained the sewadar, lobbed the grenade into the prayer room, and escaped on a motorcycle," he said.
A crater three inches in diameter was formed by the impact of the explosion and was being examined by the forensic team. The safety valve of the grenade has also been found, he said.
