Tribune News Service
Amritsar, August 8
Five days after the killing of gangster Ranbir Singh, alias Rana Kandowalia, on the premises of a private hospital, the police today made their first arrest.
Nanit Sharma, alias Saurav, a resident of Shakarpura village on the Dera Baba Nanak Road in Batala, was arrested for sheltering the suspects and facilitating treatment of an injured suspect, Happy Shah, alias Sharma.
Barring a Haryanvi speaking youth, the police have identified Jagroshan Hundal of Tarn Taran; Mani Rayya and Mandeep Singh, alias Toofan, of Batala; and Shah as the suspects in the case. The police have also nominated six persons for sheltering and harbouring them. Besides Nanit, the others were Laddi Dairywala, Sukhraj Malli, Jagtar Singh, Prabhjot Chatha and Lalli Dairywala, all residents of Batala.
“They were booked under Sections 212, 216 and 120-B of the Indian Penal Code,” said Mukhwinder Singh Bhullar, DCP (Investigations). Nanit would be produced in court where the police would seek his remand for further interrogation. Preliminary interrogation revealed Nanit and Sukhraj Malli were old friends of Toofan, who worked for gangster Jaggu Bhagwanpuria. Though Bhagwanpuria had been on the run for the past four years, they were in touch with him, he told the police.
He claimed Toofan and his accomplices Hundal and Rayya used to meet at his fruit shop. On Tuesday evening, he got a call from Toofan that they had killed Kandowalia, but one of their accomplices Shah was injured in retaliatory fire.
He asked him and Malli to make arrangements for his treatment. Malli then contacted Laddi, Chatha and Jagtar, who were known to Toofan, for help. He said they later met them at the Batala bypass, where Shah and Hundal got into the car of Prabhjot, while Toofan sat in the car with Nanit and Malli.
The Haryanvi youth, Laddi and Jagtar drove to an undisclosed destination, while they took injured Shah to a private hospital. Later, they helped him safely leave the city, Nanit told the police. The DCP said they were contemplating action against the hospital authorities for failing to inform the police.
Gangster Rana Kandowalia’s murder: 5 days on, Batala youth held for ‘sheltering’ suspects
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