Cops gun down notorious gangster

Gurdeep Singh Mann

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Tribune News Service

Bathinda, September 9

Notorious gangster Devinder Shooter, alias Devinder Bambiha, involved in over 20 cases of murder, extortion and robbery was killed in a police encounter near Phul village, Rampura, this morning. His accomplice Tara Dosanjh was arrested with a bullet injury in leg.

SSP Swapan Sharma supervised the police encounter. Wanted by the police of Punjab and Haryana, Devinder openly admitted to killing of young Congress sarpanch Ravi Khwajke of Khwajke village near Ludhiana seven months ago. Ravi was murdered in the presence of hundreds of guests at a marriage function in Ludhiana. The video of killing had gone viral on the internet. An avid Facebook user, Devinder, a resident of Bambiha village, Moga, also admitted his hand in the killing of Ravi and another murder last month near Bath village in Tarn Taran.

“In Amritsar last month, he along with accomplices fired around 150 rounds and today he tried to save himself by firing around 40 rounds,” said a senior policeman at the encounter spot this morning.

Later in the evening, Bathinda Range IG Satish Kumar Asthana, DIG Yurinder Hayer and SSP Swapan Sharma said a massive operation was launched in the 200 acres of agricultural fields in the Rampura villages to ascertain whether a third accomplice was also with them.

“They used to upload all sorts of criminal activities on the social networking sites,” said the SSP.

Apart from the infamous Tarn Taran and Ludhiana killings, Devinder and Tara were also involved in killing four people in Faridkot and Moga. Both of them were class XII students and active in criminal activities for the last four to five years. “They graduated from petty crime to heinous ones in various jails,” he said, adding that they were trailing behind them for over a month.

“We got early morning intimation that the duo was in the house of Devinder’s aunt in Phul village. The moment they tried to escape in a car, heavy gunfire ensued which lead to the killing of one the gangsters and arrest of the another,” said the SSP.

Devinder’s aunt, her husband Kuldeep Singh, a driver, son, nephew and two others are also arrested and booked for sheltering the criminals.

Two .30 bore pistols, one 9 mm pistol, one .32 bore revolver, 85 live rounds of 9 mm, 100 live rounds of 30 bore, one laptop, two mobile phones, one fake ID card, fake driving licenses, Rs 17, 500 were recovered from their possession.

Bambiha had escaped twice

Gangster Devinder Singh Bambiha managed to escape from the police custody twice. Once on September 14, 2013, during a hearing in a double murder case in Faridkot  and then on January 20, 2015, while he was being taken from Ludhiana to Muktsar for a hearing. He was cremated at his native Bambiha Bhai village in Moga on Friday.  A team of the Bathinda police led by Inspector Karamjit Singh brought the body to the village at around 6 pm. The family members then cremated him at around 8.15pm.