KOLKATA/LUDHIANA: Punjab’s most wanted gangster and drug smuggler Jaipal Singh Bhullar and his accomplice Jaspreet Singh aka Jassi, who were on the run after murdering two assistant sub-inspectors in Ludhiana district’s Jagraon grain market on May 15, were gunned down in an encounter in Kolkata’s New Town on Wednesday afternoon.
The two gangsters, hiding in a second-floor flat, were gunned down by West Bengal Police’s Special Task Force (STF) after they refused to surrender and opened fire at the cops in which one officer was severely injured.
Bhullar (39), who belonged to Ferozepur, had a reward of Rs10 lakh on his head, and Jassi (34) from Kharar in Mohali district, had Rs 5 lakh.
Two of their accomplices, Baljinder Singh alias Babbi of Malla Khurd (Moga), and Darshan Singh of Sahauli (Ludhiana) were arrested from Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh on May 28.
The four gangsters, who had turned to drug smuggling from Pakistan, had shot dead two cops from CIA Jagraon of Ludhiana rural police — ASI Bhagwan Singh and ASI Dalwinderjit Singh on May 15 and had been booked for the murders.
Jaipal Singh Bhullar and his accomplice Jaspreet Singh,(R)We asked them to surrender, but they opened fire: CopsPunjab director-general of police (DGP) Dinkar Gupta, while addressing a press conference in Chandigarh on Wednesday evening said Punjab Police had launched a massive operation, code named OP-Jack manhunt, after the murder of the two ASIs and had finally got the exact location of Jaipal and Jassi after a close associate of the two gangsters, Bharat Kumar of Ludhiana’s Sahnewal area was arrested near Shambhu Border in Rajpura and one .30 bore pistol along with a Honda Accord with registration number WB02R4500 were recovered from him.
DGP Gupta said Bharat had revealed that both Jaipal and Jassi were holed up in a rented apartment in Kolkata.
“Punjab Police immediately dispatched a special team for Kolkata by flight.
Meanwhile, we also coordinated with Kolkata Police to share pinpointed inputs regarding their current hideout for the arrest of these two most wanted drug smugglers,” he said.
The West Bengal STF conducted the main operation acting on real-time inputs from Punjab Police and the team of Punjab police reached Kolkata on Wednesday evening shortly after the encounter.
West Bengal CID is now investigating the encounter.
The STF conducted a recce of the New Town complex around 1 pm and then a team of officers in plainclothes were stationed outside eight buildings surrounding B-153 — the building where the gangsters were staying.
The operation began at 3.30 pm.
A photograph released by the West Bengal police later showed the gangsters wearing boxer shorts lying dead in the flat.
The cops found five 9mm sophisticated pistols, 89 rounds of ammunition and Rs 7 lakhs in cash with them.
Jaipal had earlier snatched a 9mm pistol from an ASI Sukhdev Singh of Khanna Police on May 10 at a police post on GT Road near Doraha in Punjab.
“We had located their whereabouts recently and raided the flat on Wednesday afternoon.
We wanted to arrest them and knocked at the second floor flat number 201 and asked them to surrender.
But they opened fire at us in which one of our officers suffered injuries.
We fired at them in self-defence in which they were killed,” said Vineet Goyal, ADG (STF), West Bengal.
Inspector Kartik Mohan Ghosh (50) suffered bullet wounds on his left shoulder and waist and underwent surgery at AMRI Hospital in Kolkata’s Salt Lake area.
“I am grateful to West Bengal Police, especially the ADGP & STF chief of West Bengal, Mr Vineet Goyal, IPS, who acted immediately on inputs provided by the Punjab Police and organised a raid at the Kolkata apartment where Jaipal was holed up along with his associate, Jassi,” said DGP Gupta.