Police are still looking for the motive in the Dugri car bombing case oflast year, in which three of the accused were followers of Sirsa-based Namdhari sect head Thakur Dalip Singh, who is caught in a succession feud with his brother, Thakur Uday Singh.
Accused Jagmohan Singh of Gadaipur (Jalandhar) and Hardeep Singh of Bholath had visited the Sirsa dera before their arrest. Third accused Harbhej Singh of Sirsa and yet another dera follower, Ranjit, were caught at the New Delhi international airport on January 25 on the basis of lookout circulars issued last December.
Police look for two more accused — Delhi’s Palwinder Singh and Sirsa’s Ratan Singh — who are said to have fled the country, as they know the entire plot and the name of the target. A twist in the case came on January 21 when a group loyal to Thakur Dalip Singh accused the management of the Namdhari dera at Bhaini Sahib in Ludhiana district of dragging his name into the case.
Namdhari Panthak Ekta Action Committee alleged in a press conference that the Bhaini Sahib sect headed by Thakur Uday Singh was maligning the image of Thakur Dalip Singh by linking him with the bombing when police investigation was still incomplete. It claimed that the car bombers might have personal motives but the sect had nothing to do with it. “The Bhaini Sahib committee wants to defame Thakur Dalip Singh to be able to create confusion and divide the Namdhari sect,” it said. The Bhaini Sahib committee refuted the allegation.
Ludhiana police had also interrogated Hardeep and Harbhej about the murder of Bhaini Sahib Namdhari leader Baba Avtar Singh Tari. Two men on motorcycle had shot him on April 13, 2011. On February 10, a local court had disallowed police to subject Jagmohan, Hardeep and Harbhej to lie-detector, narco-analysis and brain-mapping tests. On March 19, it had dismissed the bail applications of Jagmohan and Hardeep. All four accused are in jail.
Last December 5, at Dugri village, 20 kilometres from Jalandhar, a bomb explosion inside a Maruti Swift Dzire car killed cloth merchant Ajay Kumar and injured Jagmohan Singh, who faces three cases of murder and another of drug trade.
