CHANDIGARH: Three days after slain gangsters-turned drug smugglers Jaipal Bhullar and Jaspreet Singh alias Jassi were gunned down in a shootout with the West Bengal STF in Kolkata, Punjab police on Saturday arrested a Haryana based man whose credentials and documents were used to rent a flat for them in Kolkata.
The arrested person has been identified as Sumit Kumar resident of Meham in Haryana.
Bhullar (39), who belonged to Ferozepur, had a reward of Rs 10 lakh on his head, and Jassi (34) from Kharar in Mohali district, had Rs 5 lakh.
They had shot dead two cops from CIA Jagraon of Ludhiana rural police.
ADGP counter-intelligence and organised crime control unit Amit Prasad said they have managed to arrest Sumit, a close associate cum business partner of Bharat Kumar, who helped Jaipal Bhullar and Jassi in escaping from Morena, Gwalior and arranged a hideout for them in Kolkata., after they killed ASIs Bhagwan Singh and Dalwinderjit Singh of at the Jagraon grain market on May 15, 2021.
Bharat was arrested with .30 bore pistol and Honda Accord car from near Shambhu Border in Rajpura area on June 9, and his questioning led the police to the hideout of Jaipal and Jassi .
The ADGP said that preliminary investigations had found that both Sumit Kumar and Bharat Kumar, who were business partners since 2015, were involved in illegal sale of fancy mobile numbers, including mobile numbers of foreign-based telecoms, purchased from different countries and other states, which they used to sell in Punjab, Haryana at exorbitant rates.
He said that Bharat was also found to be in possession of an official ID of one constable Amarjit Singh, which they had used to evade toll plazas while escaping from Gwalior.
“Although, Bharat claimed that Constable Amarjit is his and Sumit’s mutual friend, cops are investigating why he was in possession of Amarjit’s official ID, and if the latter had any knowledge about it being misused by Bharat,” said ADGP Amit Prasad.