Chandigarh: The ongoing drive against anti-social elements launched on the directions of Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann got a major breakthrough after Anti-Gangster Task Force (AGTF) of Punjab Police arrested three persons of a gang involved in procuring and providing passports on fake particulars to gangsters/criminals of Punjab and other states to facilitate their escape from the country, said Director General of Police (DGP) Punjab Gaurav Yadav here on Friday.
Those arrested have been identified as Onkar Singh of village Kaki Pind in Jalandhar, Sukhjinder Singh alias Sharpy Ghumman of village Karhali in Patiala and Prabhjot Singh Baheri in Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh. Police teams have seized at least nine passports, besides, recovering several photocopies of passports of absconding gangsters prepared using fake particulars.
DGP Gaurav Yadav said that acting on reliable human inputs about the involvement of an inter-state travel agents in preparing passports using fake particulars to help gangsters/criminals to flee from law of the country, AGTF teams headed by ADGP Promod Ban and assisted by AIG Sandeep Goel in an overnight operation busted this gang with the arrest of its three members.
“Investigations reveal that this gang, having linkages in states including Delhi, UP, Kolkata, Gujarat and Maharashtra, had facilitated a number of gangsters/criminals from Punjab and other states to flee from the country on fake passports,” he said.
The DGP said that the Police teams have rounded-up five more persons linked with this gang and further investigations are on to unearth their entire network.
Divulging more details, ADGP Promod Ban said that accused Onkar, who runs an illegal immigration firm in Jalandhar, was involved in making passports for gangster/criminals using fake particulars and duping innocent people on the pretext of sending them abroad.
He said that during questioning, accused Onkar disclosed that he had procured passports on fake particulars for gangsters including Varinder Pal Singh alias Veena Butter (Bambiha gang) and Jaswinder Singh alias Khattu (Dharminder Gugni gang involved in the target killings in Punjab), to help them flee the country.
During the preliminary interrogation, the accused Prabhjot Singh has revealed that one of his conduits Charanjit Singh alias Bareilly (who has been arrested by Delhi Police), had made a passport using fake particulars for gangster Deepak Boxer, who was recently deported from Mexico.
The third accused Sukhjinder Singh alias Sharpy Ghumman has disclosed to have procured a passport on fake particulars for Deepinder Singh alias Deepu of Ajnala, who has a criminal background and is an associate of absconding gangster Harry Chatha.
A case FIR no. 2 dated 26-04-2023 has been registered under sections 420, 468, 471, 473 and 120-B of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), section 25 of the Arms Act and section 12 of the Passport Act at Police Station State Crime SAS Nagar.