Afghan national, granthi among five held with weapons, hawala money in Amritsar

The Amritsar police on Wednesday claimed to have busted a cross-border arms and narco-hawala network with the arrest of five persons. It seized five sophisticated weapons smuggled from Pakistan along with a drone used for pushing in arms.

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Besides, 50 gm of heroin, Rs 6.90 lakh hawala money and two bullets were also seized from them. The five pistols seized included two PX5 (9mm) pistols, two Austria-made Glock (9mm) pistols and a .32-bore calibre pistol. Those arrested have been identified as Gurwinder Singh (25) of Chheharta, Jagjit Singh (40), an Afghan national now residing in New Delhi, Arshdeep Singh (20), Karanjit Singh (21) of Gharinda and Harpal Singh (25) of Khalra in Tarn Taran.

Gurpreet Singh Bhullar, Police Commissioner, said that the cross-border cartel was involved in smuggling of sophisticated arms from Pakistan and selling these to criminals in Punjab and Delhi areas. They were using unmanned aerial vehicles for the purpose.

Sharing details about the modus operandi of the racket, he said that during the uprising of Taliban government in Afghanistan in 2014, Jagjit and his brother Gurinder Singh came to New Delhi and settled there. He said during their stay in Afghanistan, Jagjit was in touch with a Pakistan national identified as Pathan, who had also returned to his native country.

Bhullar said Pathan was currently running a dry fruit business there. However, the intelligence agencies revealed that the dry fruit trade was a cover-up used by him for carrying out cross-border drug smuggling racket. He introduced Jagjit to Pakistani smuggler Shehzad Jatt, following which the former started collecting hawala money in Amritsar area. He used to get 2 per cent commission on every payment.

During interrogation of Gurwinder, who had seven criminal cases, including attempt to murder and snatching, registered in different parts of Punjab, the police zeroed in on his three accomplices — Arshdeep, Karanjit and Harpal Singh — in the cartel and seized weapons and a drone from them.

The Police Commissioner said Arshdeep’s mother and brother had already been arrested by the Amritsar (Rural) police for weapon and drugs smuggling. They were nabbed with 2 kg heroin, drug money and around 10 pistols.

Jagjit did not have any previous record and he worked at shop in Delhi. Arshdeep was a granthi in a gurdwara, Karanjit a labourer and Harpal a painter.