In a joint operation, the Bathinda district police and the counter-intelligence wing arrested two Fazilka youngsters for throwing a petrol bomb at a clinic owned by a homoeopathic practitioner couple associated with the BJP in Bathinda’s Vishal Nagar on June 22.
The accused, Nakul Kumar, 21, and Gurwinder Singh, 22, both from Khuian Sarwar village near Abohar, were tracked via CCTV footage and an autorickshaw driver’s account.
Police said the duo took a bus to Bathinda, carried out a recce in the city for seven hours, and struck the clinic at 9.30pm before fleeing by train. While no one was injured, a scooter parked in the clinic’s verandah was damaged before staff doused the flames.
Addressing a press conference on Thursday, deputy inspector general (DIG), Bathinda Range, Harjeet Singh said the case is being treated as a terrorist act, with Section 113 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) added to the FIR.
The targets—Rajni Jindal, a BJP district executive member, and her husband Tarsem Garg, chief warden of the Bathinda civil defence corps—had recently joined the BJP from the Aam Aadmi Party. The motive remains unclear as the couple received no extortion threats, but police booked Pakistan-based, ISI-backed gangster Shahzad Bhatti after Jindal reported receiving a threat from a virtual number using his name.
Bathinda senior superintendent of police Jyoti Yadav Bains confirmed the youth were lured by an undisclosed financial reward; their financial trail is pending forensic examination of their digital devices.
Their local handler, Sandeep Singh, who allegedly acted on Bhatti’s instructions, remains at large.
The SSP said that while a National Investigation Agency (NIA) team inspected the crime scene on Wednesday, the central agency has not formally requested the case files.
