4 held with weapons, live cartridges

Balwant Garg
Tribune News Service
Faridkot, August 21

The police on Wednesday claimed to have arrested four persons with three weapons and 31 live cartridges.

There are chances that many young criminals, who are either out on bail or absconding, are running amok in the area.

The accused have been identified as Rajwinder Singh, alias Ghali; Ramandeep, alias Ramna, Akashdeep Singh and Parminder Singh. One of the weapons — a revolver — was snatched by them from a resident of Bihalewala village on August 12.

Facing 12 criminal cases in Muktsar, Bathinda and Faridkot districts, both Rajwinder and Ramandeep had hop on the crime bandwagon in 2011 when they were 16 years old.

In the past eight years, they are on a crime spree, hitting one target after another.

In May 2013, Rajwinder was awarded seven-year jail term in one of the famous criminal cases in which a minor girl was kidnapped by a gang of many members here. He was one of accomplices of Nishan Singh, the prime accused in the kidnapping and rape case. Rajwinder is facing about 10 criminal cases which include two murders and seven attempt-to-murder cases in Muktsar, Bathinda and Faridkot districts.

He remained a proclaimed offender in all these cases and he had committed the first crime when he was less than 16 years old. He had turned a hardcore criminal with a murder-like offence to his credit before he crossed the age of 18 years old, said a senior police officer.

Another accused Ramandeep is already facing many criminal cases, including that of attempt to murder. Belonging to the Kaka Nepali group, he was arrested by the police in September 2017 for killing a rival gang member Davinder Singh, alias Deva. It was an attempt to retaliate the killing of Nepali gang’s member and acquittal of Deva in that murder case.

“Both Rajwinder Singh and Ramandeep are professor criminals and they were released on bail some days ago. Once out of the jail, they roped in many youths as members of their gang. Besides them, the police have arrested Akashdeep Singh and Parminder Singh, who was living in the neighbour of Ramandeep in Bazigar Basti. One of the identified accused, Varinder Singh, alias Bunti, is absconding,” said SSP Rajbachan Singh Sandhu.