Gun seller arrested; Moga house owner, friend booked for sheltering gangsters
Owner of a gun shop in Moga has been arrested for selling arms and ammunition to Gurpreet Singh Sekhon, the since-rearrested mastermind of last November’s Nabha jailbreak. Also, the Moga police on Wednesday booked two persons for harbouring the men arrested on Sunday at a house in Dhudike village near Moga.
These include house owner Kultar Singh ‘Goldy’, an NRI and native of Dhudike village; and Gurwinder Singh Gori, a resident of Moga, who worked as the mediator to get them the house to stay in. Gun seller Karanpal Singh, who runs Punjab Gun House in Moga, was arrested on Tuesday and presented before a court in Nabha that sent him to police remand till February 18, on Wednesday.
When Sekhon was rearrested last Sunday, police had seized four pistols and a gun along with cartridges from him and his three accomplices. During interrogation, Karanpal’s name came up, for having sold a .12-bore gun and cartridges for ₹1.4 lakh. When the police checked, it came up that Karanpal had sold Sekhon the gun sanctioned on the latter’s arms licence, but had not stamped the licence nor kept any record of it at the gun house, which is an offence, said deputy superintendent of police, Nabha, Jaskirat Singh. The police had sought his remand to interrogate him about other arms possibly sold to Sekhon or other gangsters.
Sekhon and five others had escaped the Nabha high-security jail. Three of the escapees have since been recaptured.
As for Sekhon and his three accomplices arrested on Sunday, sources said that all four were staying at Goldy’s house since February 5, a day after voting for the Punjab assembly elections was held and thus the security did not remain extra-tight.
A senior police officer, seeking anonymity, said that Gori, who is a relative of Sekhon and a friend of Goldy, had worked as the first link between them. “On Gori’s request, Goldy had provided the men shelter at his house,” he said. Gurpreet Singh Toor, senior superintendent of police (SSP), Moga, said raids are being conducted to arrest the duo.