Ludhiana: Gang selling illegal weapons through FB busted, 3 held

Nikhil Bhardwaj

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, October 5

The Crime Investigation Agency (CIA) wing and counter intelligence wing of the Ludhiana police in a joint operation claimed to have busted a gang running a racket of illegal weapons and arrested three of its members. The gang chose a novel way to connect to weapon buyers and have created several pages on Facebook to lure the criminal elements.

Modus operandi

• As per the police, the gang had created several Facebook pages where they used to post details of weapons, including the images, and reportedly received orders for illegal weapons.
• The police suspected that even some youngsters who don’t have any criminal background but have a desire to keep weapon have also procured illegal weapons from the gang.

The arrested gang members have been identified as Hinderpal (33) of Lallian Khurd, Jalandhar, Balwinder Singh (39) of Wadala, Jalandhar, and Arjun Kumar (22) of Chitti Colony, Haibowal. The police also recovered two country made .32-bore pistols along with four cartridges and three mobile phones from the gang members.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) SPS Dhindsa, ADCP Rupinder Kaur Bhatti, ACP Vaibhav Duggal, CIA in-charge Harminder Singh addressed a press conference regarding the matter.

The DCP said the gang had been into the notorious trade for a long time and they used to bring illegal weapons from Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. After procuring weapons, they either used to sell weapons to their permanent clients or they used to post photos of weapons on Facebook pages.

Bhatti said Harinder was already facing five cases, including of murder, drug smuggling and Arms Act. He had committed a murder in 2008 and was sentenced to 20 years of imprisonment by the court. He was presently out on bail.

The police would demand police remand of the arrested gang members so that the entire supply line of illegal weapon smuggling could be busted and suppliers from UP and MP could be nabbed.