Tarn Taran robbers’ gang kingpin held

TARN TARAN: The Tarn Taran police claimed to have arrested the kingpin of the dacoit gang involved in three major robberies — including the loot at two branches of Axis Bank in Tarn Taran — from Havelian village, around 30km from the district headquarters, on Thursday.

The key accused has been identified as Jobanjit Singh and the police have recovered ₹1 lakh cash, a .12 bore double-barrel gun with two cartridges and a Pulser bike from his possession.

Besides Jobanjit, the district police had earlier booked three gang members, Sikandarpal Singh of Gandiwind village, Punjab Singh of Tarn Taran’s Guru Teg Bahadur Nagar and Manjit Singh of Lopoke village in Amritsar in three dacoity cases.

On December 19, the police had arrested Sikandarpal and Punjab Singh’s mother Ranbir Kaur and recovered ₹4 lakh, 625-gm heroin, two pistols, four cartridges, 1,800 intoxicated tablets and a Honda Accord car from them.

However, Punjab and Manjit still continue to be at large.

Superintendent of police (detective) Tilak Raj Singh, who also presides over a committee formed to trace the dacoity cases, said, “The accused had made a gang of robbers and carried out three dacoities in the district in the span of past two months. They have looted ₹13,35,000 from Ghurkwind and Naurangabad branches of Axis Bank . They had also robbed few auto fuel station employees of ₹7,000 and a money chest on gunpoint in Sarhali on November 5. After the arrest of Sikandarpal, we continued our investigation and came to know about the hideout of Jobanjit Singh and arrested him from his native village,” he added.

The SP said, “With the arrest of Jobanjit, we have recovered ₹5,05,000 of the looted amount till now. The remaining amount will also be recovered soon.”

The accused have already been booked under the Sections 392, 506, 394 and 379B of the (IPC) and 25-27-54-59 of the Arms Act.