Bomb Threat During Modi Visit: PM’s Punjab, Haryana Visit Under Shadow of Khalistan Threat; Bittu Named Target Too
Bomb Threat During Modi Visit: Security on high alert after a Khalistan National Army email threatens PM Modi’s Jind, Chandigarh, Jalandhar visit on July 17. Named target Ravneet Bittu also embroiled in Satluj row.
North Desk Correspondent
Chandigarh, July 13
Bomb Threat During Modi Visit: Security agencies across Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh have been placed on high alert after an email purportedly sent by a group calling itself the “Khalistan National Army” threatened to target Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the region on July 17, officials said on Monday.
The email claims blasts will be carried out at schools, railway stations and other locations in Chandigarh and Jalandhar to coincide with Modi’s tour, and separately threatens his Friday rally in Jind, Haryana.
The same message names Union Minister of State for Railways Ravneet Singh Bittu as a target. Officials noted the group has issued similar threats in recent months, including one directed at the RSS headquarters in Nagpur, suggesting this is part of a pattern rather than an isolated message.
The threat lands in the middle of what is actually a multi-leg Modi visit to the region: not a single event. North Desk has already reported on one part of it.
In Haryana, Prime Minister Modi will flag off India’s first hydrogen-powered train from Jind railway station, alongside a public rally and several other infrastructure projects: two medical colleges (Bhiwani and Narnaul), the Kurukshetra elevated railway track, the Ambala–Kala Amb Greenfield Corridor, the Haryana section of the Delhi-Katra Expressway, and Jind-Gohana NH-352A projects.
Here’s the story: What Is the Hydrogen Train PM Modi Will Launch From Haryana’s Jind?.
Friday’s itinerary extends well beyond Haryana, however, taking the PM into Punjab and Chandigarh as well — which is what puts those two cities squarely in the threat email’s crosshairs.
Key projects in Chandigarh
In Chandigarh, Prime Minister Modi will inaugurate key health infrastructure projects at the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) on Friday.
Modi will lay the foundation stone for the 150-bed Critical Care Hospital Block. He will also launch Advanced Mother and Child Centre and the Advanced Neurosciences Centre. The projects are estimated to cost around Rs 1,200 crore.
Bomb Threat During Modi Visit: Bittu named too
Bomb Threat During Modi Visit: Bittu’s inclusion in the threat is notable given he has, in recent days, also been at the centre of a separate but adjacent controversy — one that runs through the same fraught 1984–94 period North Desk has been tracking in its Khalra series.
Responding to the Satluj row over the weekend, Ravneet Singh Bittu said the makers of the Diljit Dosanjh-starrer cannot invoke “creative freedom” while presenting disputed claims as settled history, and argued that Punjab’s painful past is not a script to be edited to fit a chosen narrative.
The film, directed by Honey Trehan, dramatizes the life of human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra, whose investigation into the alleged illegal cremation of thousands of unidentified bodies in Punjab between 1984 and 1994 has been the backbone of North Desk’s ongoing coverage.
Taken together, the threat email and Ravneet Bittu’s remarks point to how live the 1984–94 period remains in the region’s politics — both as a subject of cultural reinterpretation (the film) and as a live flashpoint invoked by militant messaging (the KNA threat). North Desk will continue tracking both the security response ahead of July 17 and the fallout from Bittu’s comments as the Satluj controversy develops.
READ ALSO: Three Of Khalra’s Convicted Killers Are Out On Bail Right Now — Here’s Why
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