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Sunday's grenade attack on a Nirankari congregation on the outskirts of Amritsar rang alarm bells in Punjab. Two motorcycle-borne masked men lobbed a grenade into the prayer hall of Nirankari Bhawan's Rajasansi branch, killing three and injuring 20. Nirankaris are deemed a heterodox sect and the attack could be an attempt to stir up sectarian turmoil in Punjab. Intelligence agencies have been warning for some time that Pakistan's ISI is seeking to revive its so-called K2 plan that involves simultaneously creating trouble in Kashmir and Punjab with the help of Khalistanis in the latter state.
If this is true, government and law enforcement agencies must step up their vigil. While an NIA probe is underway, Union home minister Rajnath Singh has held a meeting to review the national security situation in the aftermath of the attack. There are attempts, fuelled by social media and online groups promoted by sympathisers abroad, to revive the Khalistani movement that had petered out in the 1990s. And perhaps today's muscular Hinduism together with the cry of 'religion under attack' being promoted by Hindutva elements in the rest of the country is also stirring up an atmosphere of muscular Sikhism in Punjab.
The string of cases involving the purported