Inter-state gang of robbers busted

Our Correspondent

Hoshiarpur, January 11

The district police have busted an inter-state gang of robbers involved in loot and abduction and seized weapons, vehicles, gold jewellery and mobile phones, intoxicating injections etc. from them.

SSP Kulwant Singh Heer said in Garhshankar area recently, members of the gang had looted cash from two petrol pumps and fired gunshots. The police had started a special operation to nab the accused. For this, a team was formed under the leadership of SP (D) Mukhtyar Rai in which DSP (D) Sarbjit Rai, Garhshankar DSP Narinder Singh Aujla, Inspector Lakhbir Singh, in-charge of CIA, Rajeev Kumar, in-charge of police station, Garhshankar, were included.

He said the police, acting on a tip-off, raided a deserted brick kiln located in Chak Phullu village and arrested the robbers. The accused have been identified as Aditya Bawa (gang leader), a resident of Gobindpur, Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar, and his brother Maninderjit Singh, Kamaldeep Singh alias Kamal, a resident of Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar, Jashandeep Singh alias Sukha, a resident of Shergarh, police station Dabwali, Sirsa. Apart from this, Harkamal Singh, a resident of Thinda village, under the police station, Mahilpur and Tarwinder Singh alias Bhinder of Chakk Musa, have been arrested. The SSP said Hukam Dev, a resident of Dev Garh, Jharkhand, is a student of Class XII and he used to supply arms to the accused by bringing them from Uttar Pradesh. He has also been arrested.

The SSP said four country-made pistols of .32 bore, 44 live cartridges, three sharp weapons, two cars, one two-wheeler, 10 mobile phones, two gold chains, one scooty and 15 sedative injections have been seized. He said the arrested gang was associated with Azad Group-011 on Instagram, through which incidents were carried out by taking ransom. SSP Heer said the gang members were involved in various incidents of kidnapping for ransom apart from looting vehicles, petrol pumps at gunpoint in Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan. He told that the accused confessed during the interrogation that they were preparing to rob a money changer in Prabhat Chowk, for which they were doing recce, while in Moga a deal was being done for Rs15 lakh to kill a person.

The SSP said the accused had demanded a ransom of Rs 14 lakh after kidnapping the manager of Punjab National Bank from Lakadwali village in Sirsa and had taken Rs 7 lakh from him. The SSP said the accused have accepted their involvement in about two dozen criminal incidents.