Two gangsters killed, 3 held after encounter in Bathinda
Gangsters fired at police from stolen Fortuner when chased; incident comes two days after arrest of most wanted gangster Vicky Gounder’s accomplice.
Two gangsters were shot dead and three were arrested after an encounter with Punjab Police at Gulabgarh village in Bathinda on Friday morning. Police recovered a 9-mm pistol, .32-bore pistol and a .315-bore pistol from them.
The five gangsters, accomplices of Punjab’s most wanted gangster Vicky Gounder, mastermind of the Nabha jailbreak, were travelling in a snatched white Scorpio (PB-02-CX 8395) when they decided to split. Three of them snatched a Toyota Fortuner (PB-13-AR-2222) from Nishan Singh of Sunam, who alerted the police.
Bathinda zone inspector general MS Chhina said the gangsters opened fire at the police team chasing them at Gulabgarh on the Bathinda-Talwandi Sabo road. Three gangsters were injured in the retaliatory fire. Two of them, Manpreet Manna of Abohar and Prabhdeep Singh from Mamu Khera village in Fazilka district, succumbed to their injuries at the Bathinda Civil Hospital, while their accomplice Amritpal Singh from Abohar is undergoing treatment at Guru Gobind Singh Medical College and Hospital in Faridkot.
Their two accomplices, Harvinder Singh Bhinda of Alamgarh village in Abohar, and Gurvinder Singh Ginda from Kamalwala in Fazilka district, have been arrested. Bhinda now lives in Jalilpur village in Bijnor district of Uttar Pradesh. All five are in their late 20s and early 30s.
Chinna said Harvinder is a cousin of gangster Shera Khuban, who was killed in a police encounter in Bathinda in 2012. The gangsters were earlier associated with Khuban, but after his death, they joined the Vicky Gounder gang,” he said. The gangsters were active in Punjab and Rajasthan, he added.
“Amritpal is facing murder charges and had escaped from police custody from the Abohar court complex on September 27 this year,” Chinna said.
The children and staff of government high school, Gulabgarh, had lucky escape as Bhinda and Ginda entered the school premises by scaling the boundary wall. They were, however, overpowered by police.
The encounter comes two days after the arrest of gangster Darshan Singh Bhoora from a farmhouse at Khizrabad in Chhachhroli town of Yamunanagar district.
Yamunanagar SP Rajesh Kalia said the police had got a tip-off of Gounder’s presence at the farmhouse.
