A Babbar Khalsa terrorist who came to retrieve a bomb near the Amritsar bypass in Punjab died as it exploded in his hands. The terrorist was rushed to a nearby hospital for treatment but succumbed hours later.

The explosion occurred around Naushera village under the Kambo police station limits in the Amritsar rural district. According to local media reports, the terrorist's arms were blown off in the blast.

Police officials reached the scene shortly after and cordoned off the area. Visuals showed smoke billowing from the residential area, adjacent to the main road.

Initially, police had ruled out the involvement of gangsters or terrorists. Police suspected the man to be a scrap dealer who might have stumbled upon an old bomb found among metal waste, which exploded later.

A senior police official said the terrorist came to retrieve a consignment and, due to mishandling of the explosive, he got injured.

"He was a member of a terrorist group. It seems Babbar Khalsa... Generally, in the abandoned area, we have also seen in the past that anti-national elements come to retrieve their consignments. We suspect that he is one of the accused who came to retrieve the consignment and, due to mishandling of an explosive, he was injured," senior Amritsar Rural police officer Maninder Singh said.

Cops are probing whether the incident was part of a larger plot or an isolated event.

Earlier this year, in March, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) conducted searches on 15 locations linked to Babbar Khalsa, a banned Khalistani terror outfit, across different parts of Punjab.

Source: India Today