Ex-sarpanch among 4 nabbed for trucker’s murder
Suspects robbed victim before killing him; kingpin injured in retaliatory firing by police
The police claimed to have arrested four miscreants who had allegedly killed the driver of a truck by throwing him on the road after committing a robbery at Sangala village on the Malerkotla-Dhuri highway on Wednesday.
Kingpin of the gang Gurpreet Singh Kala of Chananwal village in Barnala district was injured during a retaliatory firing by the police after the miscreant had fired at policemen with a weapon, which was recovered on his instance on Monday.
Other arrested suspects included former sarpanch Buta Singh, Pardeep Singh of Chrik village in Moga, now a resident of Chananwal village in Barnala, and Pritpal Singh. The police are yet to arrest another accomplice of the suspects, Aman, of Fatehgarh Chhanna.
Though the police are yet to ascertain antecedents of other suspects, preliminary investigations revealed that Kala, Buta and Pardeep were already involved in multiple cases of similar nature.
SSP Gagan Ajit Singh said the Amargarh police had received information about the recovery of a body on the outskirts of Sangala village on Malerkotla-Dhuri Road on December 17, following which the police had initiated a probe into the sequence of events, leading to the recovery of the body.
Investigation by police officials, supervised by SP (I) Sat Pal and CIA in-charge Harjinder Singh, revealed that some unidentified miscreants had intercepted the truck and killed its driver, later identified as Amrik Singh of Saharanpur, by tying his limbs and throwing him from the truck on the road.
Amrik had been working as a driver on a truck owned by Nirmal Singh of Phillaur town under Jalandhar for over six months.
Initially, a blind murder and robbery case was solved with persistent, scientific and technical investigations conducted under the supervision of SSP Gagan Ajit Singh and all suspects were identified and later arrested from different places on Sunday evening.
It was on Monday, that police personnel, led by Amargarh SHO Daljit Singh, were taking the kingpin Gurpreet Singh Kala, to a spot where he had concealed a weapon after committing the crime. But instead of handing over the gun to the police, Kala tried to escape by firing against the policemen. He received a bullet injury on foot in a retaliatory firing by the SHO. Another case was registered against Kala under Sections 109, 132, 221, 324 (4) of the BNS and 25, 54, 59 of the Arms Act.
