Cross-border arms smuggling racket busted in Amritsar, 6 held

Busting yet another cross-border module of arms smuggling, the Amritsar 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.

Those arrested were: Vinod Kumar, alias Rangeela, of Putlighar, Yuvraj Singh and Surkhap Singh of Roriwala border village, Jugraj Singh, alias Jaggu, of Plah Sahib road area, Amritpal Singh of Sherpur village in Batala and Prabhdeep Singh, alias Harman, of Mumrai village in Batala.

Mastermind Karanbir of Meerakot was yet to be arrested. He has two NDPS and arms smuggling cases registered against him. The police have also identified two Gurdaspur residents who were part of the network. Raids were on to arrest them.

Amritpal, an agriculturist, contested the panchayant elections recently. He has been active for the past two months after coming in contact with a foreign-based handler. Vinod Kumar had come out on bail recently. He had around 19 cases pending against him.

DGP Gaurav Yadav said a preliminary probe indicated that they were in contact with a foreign-based smuggler involved in pushing consignments of weapons into India via drones and other means. An investigation was in progress to establish their backward and forward linkages, he added.

Police Commissioner Gurpreet Singh Bhullar said they had reliable inputs that Amritpal was involved in smuggling of weapons from Pakistan. He said the CIA-Amritsar was alerted. The accused, along with Prabhdeep from Batala road area in Amritsar, were arrested. On their disclosure, police teams have seized two 9 mm Glock pistols apart from five .32 bore pistols along with six cartridges from near Verka bypass.

In another operation, police teams arrested Jugraj Singh along with his three accomplices from near Khalsa College. On their disclosure, the police later seized a Glock pistol and two .32 bore pistols along with four cartridges from near Guru Nanak Dev University in Amritsar. Further investigations are on and more arrests and seizures were expected in coming days, he added.