Details Of Pak Link Emerge After Wanted Drug Smugglers Killed In Bengal

Days after two wanted drug smugglers from Punjab were gunned down in Kolkata in an encounter, details have emerged of their link to Pakistan with the recovery of some weapons, sources have said.

Jaipal Singh Bhullar and Jaspreet Singh had gone missing after allegedly killing two policemen in Punjab’s Ludhiana about a month ago.

They were gunned down at an apartment complex in Kolkata’s Newtown area on Wednesday when they fired at the officials of the Special Task Force during a raid at an apartment they were holed up in, said Punjab’s Director General of Police Dinkar Gupta.

Officials said they came to Kolkata from Madhya Pradesh’s Gwalior in a car that had a Bengal registration number.

On Wednesday, V K Goyal, chief of the Special Task Force, had said that an inspector was injured in the shootout and was hospitalised. “Rs 7 lakh in cash, five weapons and 89 live rounds have been seized,” he had said. “According to the information (available), Jaipal was absconding since 2014 and during all these years, he had committed many heinous crimes and was wanted in more than 25 sensational criminal cases. He was involved in smuggling of drugs from across the border in close collaboration with major drug smugglers based in Pakistan,” an official statement had read.

Investigators found weapons made in Pakistan after the raid, sources have said. 

A search has also been launched for the person who took the Kolkata apartment on rent and allowed the two gangsters to stay there, according to news agency PTI.

Initial probe has revealed that the phone number of the flat owner was taken from a website, and “fake documents” were used to get the flat on rent, PTI reported. “Efforts are on to find that missing link between the flat owner and the two gangsters,” an officer was quoted as saying by PTI.

The killing of Jaipal Bhullar and Jaspreet Singh and the arrest of two of his associates from Gwalior is a big blow to the heroin smuggling network operating from across the border, police said.