The Ludhiana cinema hall blast case main accused was trained in Pakistan to revive militancy in Punjab and specifically to target the Dera Sacha Sauda and three other sects, the state police chief said in Chandigarh on Thursday.
"Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency imparted the training to Gurpreet Singh," Punjab Director-General of Police N P S Aulakh said at his yearend news conference.
Gurpreet Singh and two other suspected Babbar Khalsa militants were arrested near the Indo-Nepal border in Bihar on December 25.
Aulakh said that Gurpreet went to Pakistan with a jatha of Sikh pilgrims and he was trained with another terrorist Harminder Singh. Gurpreet returned to India in mid-2007 to try and revive the terrorist module in the state.
He said, "They were to attack three deras - Sacha Sauda, Ashutosh Maharaj and Baba Piara Singh Bhaniarwala," but added that Gurpreet told interrogators they had no plans to organise mass strikes.
The DGP said that 18.83 kg of RDX, firearms and ammunition were seized from the militants in connection with the October 15 blast in Shingaar cinema in Ludhiana that had claimed six lives.
Earlier reports had said that Gurpreet headed a Babbar Khalsa cell and had received a consignment of 24 kg of RDX from the Rajasthan border.
Aulakh, however, denied that militancy was returning to the state. There were sporadic cases of two modules of the International Liberation Revolutionary Force, which were busted at Mansa in June and in Ferozepur in August, he added.
