Meet heroes of Gurdaspur: Milkman, keyman, driver, late SP Baljit Singh and constables

GURDASPUR: A railway keyman, a bus driver, a milk vendor, a Punjab police constable now hailed as ‘Grenade Man’, a head constable who stopped terrorists from entering the police station and the superintendent of police Baljit Singh have emerged as heroes after the terrorist attack in Dinanagar.

It was 5:30 am on Monday when milk vendor Satpal Singh saw wires jutting out of the railway bridge number 236 on Pathankot-Amritsar line when he was crossing the bridge with his supplies.

Singh called other villagers who ran towards railway keyman Ashwani Kumar on patrol duty on the tracks. Kumar ran towards Dinanagar crossing waving a red flag to stop the Amritsar-Pathankot passenger train which was about to cross the bridge and managed to stop it just before the bridge. “There were 5 pressure IEDs, each fitted with a kg of RDX. They could have exploded with the train's pressure.

It may have been a major tragedy,” Punjab DGP Sumedh Singh Saini said. Railway minister Suresh Prabhu has announced a reward of Rs 50,000 for Kumar.



By that time, another hero had foiled the terrorists plans to hijack a Punjab Roadways bus around 5 am. The bus had around 70 passengers when driver Nanak Singh saw a masked man signalling it to stop. Singh sped away and the terrorist started firing, injuring three passengers.

Singh did not stop driving till he reached the local hospital. “This was a heroic act by you...I cannot imagine the mayhem which would have happened had the terrorists entered your bus,” Punjab CM Parkash Singh Badal told Nanak Singh.

At the police station, a heroic effort by night ‘munshi’ Ram Lal ensured that the terrorists could not enter the building as he fired back, after grabbing the gun of a sentry who was shot, after which head constable Lal bolted the police station door for inside. The terrorists had to turn right to enter the home guard barracks, where a counterassault on them was led by SP Baljit Singh, who engaged them in a heated conversations with terrorists.

Singh's mantle was then taken over by head constable Tara Singh, who lobbed nearly a dozen grenades at the terrorists with great precision, given his long experience as a chief drill inspector posted in Pathankot. The 50-year-old Tara Singh, promoted as assistant sub-inspector immediately by DGP Saini for his bravery, played a key role in allowing the SWAT team to storm the building.