2 of 17 Sikhs arrested in California wanted for murder in India: US Police

WASHINGTON: Two of the 17 Sikhs arrested in California over the weekend from two warring criminal gangs whose violent rivalry was responsible for a mass shooting at a gurdwara and a sword attack at a parade in 2018 are facing murder charges in several cases in India, US officials said.

The two Sikhs who are facing murder charges in India are Pavittar Singh and Husandeep Singh, according to a spokesperson of the California attorney general. While their nationality has not been disclosed so far, it is believed that they are still Indian citizens and have a pending asylum application.

According to Punjab Police records, Pavittar of Gurdaspur and Husandeep of Batala are associated with gangster Jaggu Bhagwanpuria and are wanted in nearly a dozen cases of murder, attempt to murder and extortion. In 2019, the Punjab Police also initiated the process to get the Interpol’s red-corner notice (RCN) issued against Pavittar and his close aide Husandeep.

A major mass casualty was prevented when local and federal law enforcement agencies in a series of raids arrested 17 Sikh men from various cities in northern California, mostly in and around the historic Yuba City, which has a predominant Sikh population, from two rival Sikh criminal syndicates.

The two rival gangs are called ‘Minta Group’ and the ‘AK47 group.’ The leader of the first group is Minta. Each of the two gangs has at least 30 members.

To the surprise of even the law enforcement agencies, the group members were found to have several dangerous firearms when they were arrested. “During the investigation, 41 firearms were seized. Those firearms included AR15s, AK-47s, handguns, and at least one machine gun,” Jennifer Dupre, the district attorney of Sutter County said.

Two of those arrested from San Joaquin County - Dharmvir Singh alias Minta and Jobanjit Singh - were stopped on their way to Manteca, where they were allegedly going to commit a homicide, with pistols, large capacity magazines, and fully automatic weapons on them.