Gangster Sampat Nehra’s five aides held in Mohali

In a major breakthrough, the Mohali police have arrested five members of the notorious Lawrence Bishnoi-Sampat Nehra gang, including an ex-armyman, and solved three cases of carjacking, loot and kidnapping in tricity in the past week.

Those arrested have been identified as Ramandeep Singh, alias Bhao, of Ferozepur; Shubnavdeep Singh, alias Shub, of Amritsar; Jaspreet Singh, alias Jassu, of Ambala; Gurwinder Singh, alias Guri and Bindri, also of Ambala, and Dinesh Kumar, who was posted as a naik with the army’s signal regiment in Jaipur.

The gangsters were apprehended from the Radha Swami chowk in Mohali on Tuesday night. Police also recovered two .315 bore pistols with 10 live cartridges, one .32 bore pistol with six cartridges, a kirpan and a Hyundai i20 car, which had allegedly been snatched at gunpoint, from them.

“The five, who are associated with the Bishnoi gang and worked in close co-ordination with Sampat Nehra, were involved in a number of carjackings,” said Mohali senior superintendent of police (SSP) Kuldeep Singh Chahal.

Bishnoi, who is currently lodged in Bharatpur jail in Rajasthan, has been allegedly running his network from behind bars. Nehra is the son of a retired assistant sub-inspector of Chandigarh Police and a key member of the Bishnoi gang. He is accused in more than a dozen cases of murder, extortion, carjacking and robbery, including that of threatening chemist Kumar Brothers owner recently. He was arrested last Wednesday by a special task force of Haryana Police from Hyderabad.

Meanwhile, the Mohali police have also booked the owner of a house in Sector 71 where Ramandeep Singh was staying on rent. Police said all the accused had gathered there.

“The landlord has been booked for conspiracy, as he provided accommodation to a dreaded criminal without verification,” said Chahal.

Recent crime spree

After the arrest, the five admitted to their involvement in three crimes in tricity in the past week, said police. The accused allegedly snatched a Hyundai Verna car at gunpoint in Panchkula on Saturday night.

The car owner, Ravinder Sharma, 38, of Baltana, had stopped at a liquor vend in Sector 21 near the Ghaggar bridge when the gangsters targeted him.

Later, the accused used the car to waylay and loot a Gujarati family at gunpoint near a petrol pump in Saneta on the Landran-Banur road on the intervening night of June 11 and June 12.

Munish Kumar, a Vadodara-based engineer, was returning from Manali along with his family when the accused looted ₹60,000 cash, a cell phone and debit cards from him. The Verna car has been seized.

Earlier, on June 11, they allegedly also kidnapped a cab driver, Varinder Kumar, over some personal enmity. Kumar was on a bike when the accused hit him with their i20 car in Sector 70. After he got unconscious, they took him to a farmhouse in Sohana. Police managed to free him from there.

Meanwhile, the crime investigation agency (CIA), Kharar, which had rounded up Nehra’s two other aides — Akash and Honey — handed them over to Rajasthan Police. The duo along with Nehra is accused of gunning down a history-sheeter, Vinod Jat, alias Jordan, at a gym in Sri Ganganagar, Rajasthan, last month.

Were planning to free sharpshooter Deepak

The accused were planning to free Deepak, alias Tinu, 24, a sharpshooter of the Lawrence Bishnoi gang presently lodged in the Nabha jail, police said.

Nehra had earlier helped him flee from the Panchkula civil hospital in June 2016. Lodged in the Ambala jail at that time, Deepak was brought to the hospital for regular checkup when Nehra and his aide blinded the accompanying police officials using pepper spray and took off with him at gunpoint.

Deepak had again given police the slip during a raid at a house in Delhi last November. He along with five other gang members — who were arrested — had gathered there to plan Bishnoi’s escape who was to be brought to Mohali on production warrants.

Police, finally, caught up with Deepak in Bengaluru last December.

Sources privy to the investigations said the five gang members held on Tuesday were planning to facilitate his escape during his transit from the Nabha jail to court. They had gathered at a house in Sector 71, where one of them, Ramandeep Singh, was staying on rent, said police.

Booked in 28 criminal cases

Deepak has 28 cases registered against him, including murder, robbery, extortion and kidnapping, in Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and Delhi. A contract killer, he has also been involved in peddling firearms.

After graduating from Panjab University, he had formed a group called Students of Panjab University comprising 100 armed members who operated around the country, investigations in the past have revealed. He used to make short videos of his crimes, glorified himself and mocked the investigating agencies on Youtube and other social media networks under the name Tinu Haryana.

When arrested last December, he was on his way to Mysuru to spend time with his girlfriend, police had claimed.