Punjab police arrest Pakistan-linked ‘most wanted’ gangster Billa Mandiala, 6 others

Punjab police on Friday arrested most wanted gangster Baljinder Singh alias Billa along with six others in a major breakthrough. A huge cache of sophisticated illegal weapons, drug money, vehicles, and fake documents have also been seized from their possession. According to DGP Punjab Dinkar Gupta, the arrests were made in a joint operation by the OCCU team from Chandigarh, Counter Intelligence Jalandhar Unit and Kapurthala Police yesterday, who identified the arrested as Baljinder Singh aka Billa Mandiala (r/o Mandiala, Gurdaspur), Sukhjinder Singh (r/o village Kamoke Beas, Amritsar), besides Kapurthala-based Mohit Sharma, Lovepreet Singh, Mangal Singh, and Maninderjeet Singh aka Happy, in addition to Lovepreet Singh aka Lovely (r/o Amarkot, Valtoha Tarn Taran). Billa was wanted in more than 18 criminal cases including, murder, attempt to murder and smuggling of weapons, drugs, etc and all the arrested accused have been kept separately as they are being tested for coronavirus by a special team of doctors. Terming it as one of the biggest caches of highly sophisticated weapons from a criminal gang, Gupta said that Sig Sauer pistols were in fact being used by members of the US Secret Service, which protects the highest elected leaders of the US, including the President. The DGP said that preliminary investigations carried out so far has revealed that most of the weapons recovered are learned to have come from across the Indo-Pak border in different consignments. "Police is also investigating the role of militants in the supply chain of illegal weapons. Further, the spokesperson disclosed that Toyota Fortuner, Etios Lava, and Alto cars were also seized from the criminals, along with some fake documents," he added. 'Supply chain of illegal weapons' The initial probe in the case has revealed that gangster Baljinder Singh was in contact with various Pakistan-based weapon and drug smugglers, including Mirza and Ahmdeen, and had already received many consignments of weapons and drugs from them, mostly in the Ferozepur area. Giving out the details about the supply chain of illegal weapons, DGP said Mirza was allegedly working as a courier on the Indo-Pak border for operatives of the Khalistan Liberation Force (KLF) based in Pakistan and India in the recent past and had successfully pushed many weapon consignments into the Indian territory. "Billa Mandiala also revealed that he was in close contact with gangster Gurpreet Singh Sekhon, who is currently lodged in Patiala Jail and is suspected to be in touch with Germany and Pakistan based militant outfits. Gurpreet Sekhon is an ‘A’ category gangster who had earlier been in touch with KLF chief Harminder Singh Mintu, who died a few years ago," he added.