Gopal Nagar Firing incident: Gangster Soni held by Shirdi police

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, June 23

Puneet Soni, alias Pimpu, one of the main accused in the Gopal Nagar firing incident, was arrested by the Shirdi police on Wednesday evening. A team of the Jalandhar police has reportedly left for Shirdi to take the accused in their custody.

The case

Himanshu of Gurdev Nagar had lodged a complaint with the city police that Puneet Soni, his two friends along with Pancham Noor and his gang members attempted to kill him on April 14 at Gopal Nagar locality. He was on his way to home, when Puneet along with others opened fire on him, but luckily he escaped unhurt.

Arrests made so far

The police have so far arrested gangster Pancham Noor, Amit Kalyan, Deepak Bhatti and Nikhil. Pancham was arrested by the city police from the outskirts of the city on May 28. Following a tip-off, his aides Amit and Deepak were arrested from Dehradun, Uttarakhand, whereas Nikhil was nabbed from Jalandhar on April 22.

Two still at large

Aman Sethi and Amritpal Singh, alias Mirza, who have been named in the FIR are still at large. The complainant, Himanshu, said Pancham and his aides were hired to carry out the incident, but the one who planned this attack and wanted to kill him were Puneet, Aman and Mirza. Meanwhile, police officials said with Puneet’ arrest, they were expecting to receive some inputs which would lead them to Amit and Mirza’s arrest.

Puneet along with members of the Pancham gang had opened fire on Himanshu Saundhi to take revenge against him for a college fight that happened way back in 2012.

While gangster Pancham Noor and three of his accomplices were arrested by the city police in two different operations conducted in the past two months, Puneet and two other accused, Aman Sethi and Amritpal Singh, were absconding.

“Puneet was earlier hiding in McLeodganj and then left for Shirdi in Maharashtra. He was staying there for the past 10 days, and when the hotel staff asked him to vacate the room, he asked them to extend his stay and was reluctant to clear the dues, following which, the staff suspected some wrongdoing and alerted the police,” said a police official.

After the Shirdi police took him into their custody, Puneet during questioning confessed that he was escaping jail. “He will be brought to Jalandhar in a day or two, and his accomplices Mirza and Aman Sethi too will be traced soon,” he said.

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