Punjab’s most wanted killed in Rajasthan

Culprits, at times, try to escape from police custody. And to capture them police lay traps or shoot at them which may injure or kill them.

Punjab’s most-wanted criminal Harjinder Singh Bhullar alias Vicky Gounder and his aide Prema Lahoriya were shot dead in an encounter with the police in a village near Muktsar at Punjab-Rajasthan border, on Friday evening.

“Vicky Gounder and Prema Lahoriya were killed during an encounter with police. This was an intelligence-based operation”, Dinkar Gupta, DGP Intelligence, Punjab told a national news agency.

Two policemen were also injured during the operation, Gupta informed.

Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh took to Twitter to congratulate Punjab police:

Congratulations to Punjab Police for killing most wanted gangster Vicky Gounder and his aide Prema Lahoria. Excellent work by DGP Suresh Arora, DG Intelligence Dinkar Gupta and OCCU team, including AIG Gurmeet Singh and Inspector Vikram Brar. Proud of you boys.

— Capt.Amarinder Singh (@capt_amarinder) January 26, 2018

A third gangster shot in the operation led by the State Crime Control Unit died of his injuries at the Civil Hospital in Abohar. He was later identified as Sukhpreet Singh.

In September last year, a controversy erupted after it was alleged that Uttar Pradesh’s special task force had caught Gurpreet Singh alias Gopi Ghanshyampura, but let him go after a Rs. 1 crore deal was struck by a senior police officer. A probe was also ordered in the incident.

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Punjab Police – that hadn’t been told about the detention – was reported to have found out about Gurpreet Singh’s arrest from a Facebook post by Vicky Gounder.

Gounder emerged as the Punjab police’s prime target after he broke out of the Nabha high-security jail in November 2016. He eluded capture despite police getting intelligence reports that he was mostly in Punjab after the jailbreak.

Gounder, who used to taunt the police on Facebook while he was on the run, allegedly killed three rival gang members in April last year in Gurdaspur. In the past, he had challenged claims made by the police on the social media website by posting updates reportedly from inside the jail. He had uploaded photos and videos to claim credit for murders that he had ordered from behind bars too.

Gounder, a member of a gang started by Jaipal Singh, shot into the limelight in January 2015 after he was named the prime accused in the murder of rival Sukha Kahlwan. Gounder, accompanied by Lahoria, killed Kahlwan in Phagwara when six policemen were taking Kahlwan back to Nabha jail in a jeep after a court hearing in Jalandhar. According to sources, Gounder even filmed the act and danced around the Kahlwan’s body in front of the policemen and fled from the spot. Gounder was arrested for the murder later in 2015.

Gounder was wanted in at least 15 cases of murder, kidnapping, and robbery in north India.