Four arms smugglers arrested with five sophisticated pistols

With the arrest of four persons, the city police on Tuesday claimed to have busted an organized racket involved in interstate arms smuggling and recovered five sophisticated pistols from their possession.

Those arrested were identified as Navdeep Singh, alias Nav (25), a resident of Gopal Nagar located on Majitha Road, Ujjwal Hans (24) of PWD Complex on Batala Road, Jasandeep Singh, alias Jassa (21), of Dhoopsari village located along the Verka bypass, and Shivam Singh, alias Babblu (24), of Uttarakhand, currently residing at 88 Feet Road, Lakshmi Vihar, on Majitha Road.

Addressing mediapersons, Police Commissioner Gurpreet Singh Bhullar said the accused have around 12 criminal cases, including attempt to murder, under the Arms Act, and robbery, against them. Three of them — Navdeep Nav, Jasandeep Jassa, and Shivam Babblu — have been evading arrest in six cases of attempt to murder. These accused were also involved in five recent such instances in the city.

Sharing operational details, he said acting on a specific input regarding illegal arms smuggling from Uttar Pradesh which were further being supplied to criminal elements in Punjab, the police arrested the suspects from the PWD complex falling under the Ranjit Avenue police station here. A firing incident was also reported when the police teams had raided the complex.

During preliminary interrogation, they disclosed that they procured these weapons from an unidentified person in Lucknow, UP, for supplying to anti-social elements.

Further probe is on to unearth the entire network of suppliers, dealers, and buyers, as well as to trace the total number of weapons procured by the gang so far, said the Police Commissioner.

Amritsar