Alert after carjacking at gunpoint in Punjab

CHANDIGARH:  Punjab Police and security agencies in neighbouring states have launched a manhunt after a carjacking incident at gunpoint by three men in Punjab's Gurdaspur district, police said on Saturday.

Three motorcycle-borne miscreants stopped a white-coloured Verna car near the Bariar bypass, fired shots into the air and snatched the vehicle on Friday evening, a senior police official told IANS.

He, however, ruled out the possibility of a terror angle to the incident even though the whole district has been put on high alert.

The Director General of Police in Punjab in a letter to his counterparts in Jammu and Himachal Pradesh asked them to step up the security.

Security agencies were taking the incident seriously in view of two major terrorist strikes in the area in recent years.

Terrorists from Pakistan had attacked the Indian Air Force (IAF) base in Punjab's Pathankot in 2016 and Dinanagar town in neighbouring Gurdaspur district in 2015.