The top police chief said the blast was meant to create a sense of insecurity ahead of the state elections and instil a sense of fear in the courts

The main accused in the December 23 bomb blast in Punjab court was an ex-cop and had links to Khalistani elements, state’s top police chief Siddharth Chattopadhyaya said, suggesting that the attack was carried out on the behest of Pakistan’s spy agency ISI.

Addressing the media for the first time after assuming charge as Punjab’s Director General of Police (DGP), Chattopadhyaya on Saturday said that the accused — Gagandeep Singh, a dismissed Punjab Police head constable who got killed in the blast— was in touch with radical Khalistan elements when he was in jail in a drugs case.

Citing preliminary investigations, the DGP said that Singh got in touch with such elements “most probably while he was in jail in Punjab” where he “transitioned from just narcotics to mafia and terror”.

The top police chief said the blast was meant to create a sense of insecurity ahead of the state elections and instil a sense of fear in the courts.

“It was an external conspiracy. The motive was to scare the judiciary. Two persons undergoing trial in drug cases have been brought on production warrant while a woman constable has been detained for questioning,” Chattopadhyaya said.

“As per leads with us, we strongly suspect that the person (behind Ludhiana blast) is operating from Pakistan only,” the DGP added.

The DGP said “police visibility” would be increased and security beefed up at crowded places in the state by pruning security cover of private individuals and deploying them in the field.

The bombing took place on Thursday, killing accused Gagandeep Singh and injuring six others at Ludhiana District Court Complex.

Ludhiana Commissioner of Police informed that the explosion was heard near the Record Room on the second floor of the Ludhiana Court complex.

The blast damaged the roof and walls of the toilet. Following the explosion, the bathroom grill fell on the vehicles parked on the ground floor.