NIA announces ₹4 lakh reward on 2 Punjab men
WHILE ONE IS BROTHER OF 532-KG HEROIN SEIZURE CASE’S KINGPIN RANJIT SINGH CHEETA, THE OTHER IS NEPHEW OF NOTORIOUS SMUGGLER BALWINDER SINGH BILLA HAVELIAN
AMRITSAR : The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has announced a cash reward of Rs 4 lakh on two accused wanted in a case of the HIzbul Mujahideen terror funding module that was busted by the Punjab Police in Amritsar last year.
The two accused—Iqbal Singh alias Shera and Sarwan Singh— are residents of Havelian village, situated at a stone’s throw from the barbed wire fence along the India-Pakistan border in Tarn Taran district.
The village is notorious for cross-border drug smuggling.
Sarwan is the brother of Ranjit Singh, alias Cheeta, the kingpin in the seizure of 532-kg heroin smuggled in a rock salt consignment imported from Pakistan though the Attari border in June 2019, while Shera is the nephew of Balwinder Singh Havelian, a notorious smuggler.
One Hilal Ahmed Wagay of Pulwama district of Jammu and Kashmir was arrested by the police in Amritsar in April last year and Rs 29 lakh was recovered from a truck he was driving.
Wagay, the police had said, had come to collect the money on the instructions of Hizbul Mujahideen chief Riyaz Ahmed Naikoo.
Naikoo was killed in an encounter in Pulwama nearly two weeks after Wagay’s arrest.
The police subsequently arrested Bikramjit Singh, alias Vicky and his brother Maninder Singh, alias Mani of Guru
Amardas Avenue in Amritsar city ij connection with the case. Bikramjit delivered the money to Wagay, who was to further hand it over to the Hizbul Mujahideen group, it was claimed.
Bikramjit had allegedly confessed that the money was given to him by Shera and Cheeta who along with his father Harbhajan Singh and brother Gagandeep Singh was arrested from Haryana in an NIA-Punjab Police joint operation in May last year.
A senior Punjab Police official said, “On Thursday, we got information from the NIA that a bounty of Rs 2 lakh each was announced on Shera and Sarwan. Besides the terror funding case, the duo is wanted by the police in several drug cases registered in to the Punjab. Shera’s brother Swaran Singh is also wanted in the case. But the NIA has not yet announced any reward on him.”
Cheeta, Sarwan, Shera and Swaran had been smuggling heroin and transferring its proceeds to terror outfits, he claimed.
It was in May last year that the case was handed over to the NIA that filed a 14,000-page chargesheet against 10 persons in October, claiming that the module members were involved in smuggling and selling of heroin and channelising its proceeds through hawala to Pakistan and Hizbul militants in Kashmir.
A supplementary chargesheet was filed by the agency on January 6 this year against Jaswant Singh, alias Jassa Gurjant Singh, alias Gora.
The accused allegedly received at least six heroin consignments via Attari in trucks carrying rock salt from Pakistan with the last being the 532 kg seizure.