Amritsar encounter: Wanted to catch gangsters alive, gave them chance to surrender, say police

PTI

Chandigarh, July 21

Punjab Police on Thursday said it wanted to catch alive the two gangsters allegedly involved in singer Sidhu Moosewala's murder and had asked them to surrender but they did not stop firing.

Jagroop Singh Roopa and Manpreet Singh alias Mannu Kusa were killed in a nearly five-hour-long encounter with Punjab Police on Wednesday. They hid in a building at Bhakna village near the India-Pakistan border in Amritsar, according to police.

Three policemen and a journalist were also injured.

Amritsar Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) MS Bhullar said police had asked the two gangsters to surrender.

"We wanted to catch them alive. But when they did not stop firing, they were killed in the exchange of fire," he told reporters in Amritsar.

Replying to a question, Bhullar said the gangsters were dropped at the building by a vehicle and efforts were being made to trace it.

"During a search by forensic teams, 31 rounds of AK-47, a .45 bore pistol and two magazines were recovered from the building," the DCP said.

A broken mobile had also been recovered and the forensic teams would examine it, he said.

On Wednesday, police recovered an AK-47 rifle and a .9 mm pistol from the gangsters.

Asked whether any drugs were recovered from the encounter site, Bhullar said, "We have recovered some tablets and our forensic teams are examining them."

No document had been recovered, he said when asked if any fake passports were found.

The bodies of the two gangsters have been shifted to the Amritsar civil hospital for post-mortem, Bhullar said.

#punjab police #sidhu moosewala