Trans-border arms smuggling module busted in Amritsar, 6 held

Busting yet another trans-border module of arms smuggling, the city police have arrested six associates of a foreign-based smuggler in two separate cases and confiscated 10 pistols, including three sophisticated Austria-made 9mm Glock pistols smuggled from Pakistan.

Among those arrested included Vinod Kumar alias Rangeela of Putlighar, Yuvraj Singh and Surkhap Singh of Roriwala border village, Jugraj Singh, alias Jaggu, of the Plah Sahib road, Amritpal Singh of Sherpur village in Batala and Prabhdeep Singh, alias Harman, of Mumrai village in Batala.

The mastermind, Karanbir, of Meerakot is yet to be arrested. He already faced two cases — one under the NDPS Act and the other for smuggling arms. Besides, the police also identified two Gurdaspur residents, who are part of the network. Raids were on to arrest them.

Amritpal, an agriculturist, had recently contested the panchayant elections. He has been active for the last two months when he came in contact with a foreign-based handler while Vinod Kumar had recently come out on bail. He had around 19 cases of different nature, including snatching, dacoity and assault.

DGP Gaurav Yadav said that as per preliminary probe they have been in contact with foreign-based smuggler, who has been pushing huge consignments of weapons into Indian Territory via drones and other means. He said further investigations are in progress to establish their backward and forward links.

Sharing details, Police Commissioner Gurpreet Singh Bhullar said as per police reliable inputs Amritpal was involved in smuggling of weapons from Pakistan. He said CIA (Amritsar) staff was alerted and the accused along with Prabhdeep from the Batala road in Amritsar were arrested. On their disclosure, police teams recovered two 9MM Glock pistols, five .32 bore pistols along with six cartridges from near the Verka bypass.

In another illegal weapon smuggling operation, police teams nabbed accused Jugraj Singh along with his three accomplices from the backside of Khalsa College and on their disclosure, recovered a Glock pistol and two .32 bore pistols along with four cartridges concealed at an isolated location at the back side of Guru Nanak Dev University in Amritsar. Further investigations are on and more arrests and recoveries are expected in the coming days, he said.

He said two separate FIRs have been registered by the Cantonment and Verka police stations in this connection.