PUNJAB POLICE BUST INTERSTATE ARMS SMUGGLING RACKET; FOUR HELD WITH 9 PISTOLS, SWIFT CAR

SAS Nagar: In a major breakthrough, Punjab Police have busted an Interstate Illegal Arms Smuggling Racket with the arrest of its four members after recovering nine .32 bore country-made pistols along with eight live cartridges from their possession, said Director General of Police (DGP) Gaurav Yadav here on Sunday.

Those arrested have been identified as Gurmanjot Singh of Chakkar in Ludhiana, Kuldeep Singh alias Manak of village Lehra in Ludhiana, Sukhchain Singh of village Moom in Barnala and Sandeep Singh of village Bhaini Gujran in Ludhiana.

Pertinently, both the accused Kuldeep Singh alias Manak and Gurmanjot Singh, who became known to each other while at Ludhiana jail in the year 2016, have a criminal background with many cases pertaining to attempt to murder, Arms act, Snatching, theft etc registered against them and they were out on bail at present. Accused Gurmanjot was in contact with Madhya Pradesh based illegal arms smugglers after he met them at Ludhiana Jail in year 2022.

DGP Gaurav Yadav said that following reliable inputs about the movement of arms smugglers possessing consignment of illegal arms and ammunition brought by them from Sendhwan in district Barwani of Madhya Pradesh with the intention to carry out criminal activity in the state, Police teams from State Special Operating Cell (SSOC) SAS Nagar laid a Naka at Patran- Khanauri road in Patiala.

“Police teams have apprehended all the accused persons, who were travelling in their white Swift car (PB 10 GG 9014), and recovered nine pistols, bearing distinctive ‘Star’ mark from their possession,” he said, while adding that Police have also impounded their car.

He said that preliminary inquiry revealed that some of the weapons were to be used by the arrested accused persons to execute some targeted organised crime, while, the remaining weapons were meant for distribution to the members of other gangs.

DGP Gaurav Yadav said that all the accused persons were involved in supplying weapons to criminal gangs in Punjab as well as neighbouring states.

DIG Counter Intelligence J Elanchezian said that further investigations are on to trace the forward and backward linkages of this module, and identify the MP-based arm smugglers. More arrests and recoveries are expected, he added.

A case FIR no. 9 dated 30.03.2024 has been registered under sections 25 and 25(7) of the Arms Act and section 120B of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) at Police Station SSOC in SAS Nagar.