Overview

• Rajasthan Police detained three adults and three minors in Jaipur and Tonk and transferred them to Punjab’s Special Operation Cell for their alleged role in a July 7 grenade blast in Nawanshahr
• On August 14, Punjab Police’s Anti-Gangster Task Force arrested two most-wanted Bishnoi operatives, Akshay Delu and Ankit Bishnoi alias Kakkar, near Shambhu and seized an Austria-made 9 mm Glock pistol with six live cartridges
• Investigators allege the group communicated via Instagram and other apps with Canada-based Zeeshan Akhtar, who provided grenades and directed strikes on Independence Day in Delhi and Gwalior
• Punjab Police say evidence points to an “inter-operational” network of organised crime figures, foreign-based terrorists and smugglers operating under Pakistan’s ISI to coordinate terror and extortion operations
• Authorities continue to probe the full extent of the criminal-terror nexus and the exact whereabouts of foreign handlers after earlier reports claimed Akhtar had been detained in Canada