OnMay 15, two Punjab Police ASIs were shot dead in New Grain Market of Jagraon,Ludhiana. The Punjab Home Guard Jawan Rajwinder Singh, who was an eye witnessto the incident, has accused Gangster Jaipal and his aides for the murder.
JaipalSingh Bhullar alias Manjit Singh, son of a retired Assistant-Sub-Inspector fromPunjab police, is one of the most dreaded and sharpest gangsters of the region.He is wanted in Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh for over 40cases related to murder, extortion, kidnapping, robbery and smuggling.
Itis said that Gangster Jaipal, is the only gangster in the region who hasmastered the art of surreptitious movement, not using mobile phones at all, formingtrigger-happy gangs across states.
How Jaipal enteredthe world of Crime?
Hisstory began in 2003, at Speed Fund Academy, a Punjab government sports trainingcentre in Ludhiana. Here, childhood friends Jaipal and Amandeep Singh aliasHappy of Deora village in Ferozepur, had met again.
Jaipal,a hammer-thrower, and Happy, a bodybuilder, had lived close by in Ferozepur,both sons of cops.
Happy’sfather, sub-inspector Desh Raj, was already retired then and he, along withHappy, planned the kidnapping of Chirag, son of their close relative. Happy gotJaipal — who was into petty crime in Ferozepur before coming to Ludhiana — andother friends involved in the get-rich-quick plan. All of them landed in theLudhiana jail instead. It was far from the end.
First front-pageCrime
InJuly 2004, seven men, five of them barely in their 20s, arrested for thesensational kidnapping of seven-year-old Chirag, son of a cinema-hall owner inLudhiana, among them was Jaipal Singh, a Ferozepur boy.
Jail boost
Inthe Ludhiana central jail, Jaipal met Rajiv alias Raja, when the latter landedthere in 2006 for loot and murder of three Ludhiana jewellers. Jaipal and Rajaganged up. Once out on bail, Jaipal met Shera of Khubban village, Fazilkadistrict (then part of Ferozepur), at a hammer-throw event in Patiala that bothwere participating in.
Sherawas a national-level player, studying in BA-II at Sri Guru Gobind SinghCollege, Sector 26, Chandigarh, and son of a food and supplies departmentinspector. He was planning to go to New Zealand at the time. Jaipal, whose fatherhad met with an accident, got Shera to “help” him as his family was facing afinancial crunch. The task: Get Rajafreed from jail.
Thathappened in January 2009, when the duo helped Raja flee from police custody atthe Barnala bus stand. In the sensational escape, Jaipal fired in the air andassaulted the cops who were transferring Raja from the Ludhiana to the Bathindajail.
Gang gets going
Jaipaland Raja put together a dreaded gang of highway robbers. Shera was a part ofit, while others were Chandu alias Chand Miyaan, Harjot Singh, a kabaddiplayer; and Harinder Singh Tinu, a former shot-putter who was pursuing a lawcourse at Panjab University in Chandigarh and was the son of a Chandigarhpolice inspector. Sports, and fathers being in the police, were common threadshere too.
Inthe first half of 2009, they had already robbed a gun house in Hoshiarpur,looted money from banks in Panchkula and Mohali; robbed a Chandigarhbusinessman and a BJP leader in Panchkula; and jacked several flashy cars onthe highways. Raja was leading the gang in Haryana; Jaipal, in Punjab.
InJune 2009, Raja and some of the gang members were arrested by the Panchkulapolice. A month later, Jaipal and his team were arrested by the Chandigarhpolice. They were taken on production warrants to 27 police stations in Punjab,Haryana and Delhi. But, in most cases, they were acquitted with witnessesreluctant to speak up. In other cases, they got bail.
Rocky in Burail jail
Duringtheir time in Chandigarh’s Burail jail, Jaipal and his gang came in touch withFazilka’s Rocky, who was lodged there — along with Jaipal’s old buddy HappyDeora — since July 2008 for the murder of Prabhjinder Singh Dimpy, aChandigarh-based gangster and his associate-turned-enemy.
Whileseemingly having grouped together under Rocky there, differences emerged afterJaipal and his men were acquitted by a Chandigarh court in July 2010 and thegang resumed operations in Punjab. Shera came to the forefront of runningJaipal’s gang with the help of a new recruit, Gurpreet Singh Sekhon; Jaipalshifted operations to Rajasthan and got into smuggling of drugs.
Gang realignment andwar
Rocky,meanwhile, started taking Happy under his wings; at which Shera killed Happy inJuly 2012 in Ferozepur. In turn, Shera’s run ended two months later, inSeptember 2012, when he was killed by the Punjab police in an encounter inBathinda. The tip-off was reportedly provided by Sukhdeep Singh Sekhon Karmitiof Rocky’s gang. Karmiti was then killed allegedly by Jaipal’s gang at a dogshow in Ferozepur around a year later.
Also Read: Drive Against Drugs: Police chiefs in Punjab asked to identify drug hotspots, top drug smugglers
Jaipal’sgang was allegedly behind the murder of gangster Sukha Kahlon (Kahlwan), too,in January 2015 for which his accomplices Harjinder Singh alias Vicky Gounder,Chandu and Kulpreet Deol alias Neeta were arrested last year.
OnJanuary 5 this year, the Mohali police arrested Jaipal’s three close associatesfrom Ludhiana on charges of smuggling heroin and other drugs from Pakistan. Itseemed Jaipal had been weakened. But apparently he hit back, striking right atthe top of the rival gang with Rocky’s murder; for which his old associateTirath Dhilwan and he are now wanted.
Other major crimes
Hehad masterminded the May 2, 2017 Banur van robbery with Tirath Dhilwan,an'A-category' gangster, in which six armed men fired gunshots and escaped withRs 1.33 crore. Jaipal kept the maximum booty with himself and gave away only Rs20 lakh to the others involved with him.
Hemeticulously planned and monitored the February 17, 2020 robbery of 30kg goldfrom a branch of India Infoline Finance Limited (IIFL) in Ludhiana. Jaipal waswaiting in the car as his accomplices took the IIFL staff on gunpoint andreturned with 30kg of gold before they fled.
Hisbrother Amritpal Bhullar and a close aide Gagandeep Singh @ Gagan Judge werearrested by the police.