7 wanted Punjab criminals arrested after 1,500-km chase, spanning 4 states

Tribune News Service

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Chandigarh, March 2

The Punjab Police have arrested seven accused, including three most wanted gangster-criminals, after an over two-month long, 1,500-km chase that spanned four states, to solve a spate of heinous crimes, including the recent murder Gurdeep Singh, former sarpanch of Umarpura village in Amritsar.

The operation covered the states of Punjab, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, DGP Dinkar Gupta said on Monday, adding the trio was finally arrested from Rajasthan, on a tip-off. The accused had been changing their locations and creating fake identities while being on the run.

The three most wanted criminals have been identified as Harman Bhullar of Amritsar, Balraj Singh of Gurdaspur and Harwinder Sandhu of Amritsar (rural). They were all members of a criminal gang operated by Pavittar Singh, a gangster-criminal now based in USA.

The police have so far seized one .30-bore pistol, two .32-bore pistols, one Springfield Rifle and 18 cartridges, 12 bore gun with 40 live cartridges, two .315-bore pistols, 2 cars (one i20 and one Swift), and 3 fake Aadhaar Cards.

Pavittar Singh from Gurdaspur is leading the Chaura Madhra gang. He is presently suspected to be in USA. Husandeep is one of the close associates of Pavittar and as per credible inputs, he is also living in the USA. The entire gang is involved in many cases of extortion, attempt to murder, murder, rioting etc, said the DGP.

Harman Bhullar, Balraj Singh and Harwinder Sandhu had arranged fake Aadhaar Cards in the names of Mangal Singh, Ram Dev and Mohinder Singh, respectively. Harman Bhullar had also managed to get his fake Passport issued in the name of Harman Singh from the Regional Passport Office, Ambala, with a fake address of Pehowa in Haryana.

Gurdeep Singh (55), a former Sarpanch of Umarpura village, was shot dead by a group of armed assailants led by Harman Bhullar, when he was returning home from a gurdwara on January 1, 2020. Harwinder Sandhu, a member of Pavittar Gang, had also claimed responsibility for the killing of Mandeep Singh, 26, of Pandori Waraich village, Amritsar (Rural), due to personal enmity.

Besides these two murders, the accused were also wanted in the recent attempt to murder case in which they fired gunshots, injuring one Triptpal Singh in November 2019 in village Jijayani in Amritsar (Rural), said the DGP. The accused, who had been on the run for the past several months, had flaunted their involvement in these cases on their social media posts.

According to the DGP, Harman Bhullar was involved in as many as 8 criminal cases while Balraj Singh was wanted in 10 criminal cases and Harwinder Sandhu in 3 criminal cases.

A long chase

The chase, which started from Amritsar-Chandigarh on January 28, culminated successfully on March 1, as a result of the perfect inter-state coordination and cooperation between the police forces of the four states, said Gupta.

Police teams first moved to Rudrapur, Uttarakhand, and started chasing the criminals, who were travelling in an i20 car (UK 04T 9229).

It was in the early morning of March 1 that their movement again came to notice in Rajasthan in coordination with Highway authorities and CCTV footage. Chase teams of Punjab Police and the SOG Teams of Rajasthan Police were put on high alert. Finally, after one of the longest chases in policing covering a distance of over 1500 km, the trio was apprehended from Sojat with the help of Rajasthan Police.

The breakthrough regarding the movement of the accused came when Ranbir Singh of SAS Nagar, who was admitted in PGIMER, Chandigarh on February 23, 2020, had accidently shot himself with a countrymade weapon and the subsequent investigations led to revelation of the weapon being provided by Harman Bhullar and his associate through one Harry Bajwa of Chandigarh. Harry Bajwa had provided a safe house to the accused in Sector 40, Chandigarh. Harry has also been arrested.