Bathinda: Weapon ‘seized, kept’ by police recovered from drug peddler

Sources said that a subsequent probe by cops has shown that at least two such seized weapons had gone missing from the custody of Bhagta Bhai Ka police station in Bathinda, with none of the policemen having any clue as to how.

As per details, on May 27, Bathinda police had arrested one Ritik Khanna and recovered some narcotic substances from his possession along with Rs 32000 in cash and a pistol.

Khanna was booked under sections of the NDPS Act and the Arms act at City Rampura police station. The .32 bore pistol — with the number RP 217609 GSF-IN-2016 — recovered from Khanna’s possession was seized by the Bhagta Bhai Ka police station.

Later, a team of Crime Investigation Agency probed the case and found the weapon recovered from Khanna belonged to one Pritam Singh of Bhagta Bhai Ka.

Further probe revealed that Pritam Singh is a local scribe who had been booked under charges of attempt to murder at Bhagta Bhai Ka police station in March 21, 2020. He had then secured protection against arrest from the Punjab and Haryana High Court, which asked him to surrender his weapons — a countrymade gun and a pistol — at the police station as per norms.

The pistol surrendered by Pritam Singh at Bhagta Bhai Ka police station, incidentally, bore the same serial number as that recovered from Ritik Khanna, leaving officers confused.

Police said that in the May 27 case, they have booked Khanna’s aide Sahil Kumar as the main accused. Kumar is at present on the run and police sources hope that his arrest might lead them to the origin of the weapon recovered from Khanna.

“The main accused in the case, Sahil Kumar, is still on the run. We have arrested his driver. The weapon recovered belongs to Sahil Kumar. We will perhaps have more idea about the weapon and its origin after Kumar’s arrest,” said Crime Investigation Agency in-charge Tarjinder Singh.

Incidentally, this is not the first time that a seized weapon had gone missing from the custody of Bhagta Bhai Ka police station. In a similar case earlier, a man from Kotha Guru Ka had filed a complaint with the police alleging his weapon seized by them was missing. “According to the complainant, he had surrendered his weapons at the Bhagta Bhai Ka police station before the Punjab Assembly elections. When he went to get it back after teh elections were over, he was given a weapon inside a box. According to the complainant, he opened the box after going back home and found that the weapon given to him was not the pistol that had been submitted by him. We have been investigating his claims. His originally surrendered weapon is yet to be located,” said Satnam Singh, DSP, who is investigating the case.

Contacted, Pritam Singh blamed the police for the lapse.

“This is a very serious matter. I got to know from the Crime Investigation Agency that the weapon recovered from the drug smuggler had the same number as mine. How come a pistol with Punjab police’s custody ended up in the hands of a drug smuggler ?” said Pritam Singh.