Punjab’smost wanted gangster Jaipal Bhullar and his close aide Jassi Kharar, were killedin a joint operation by Punjab Police, West Bengal Police and central securityagencies on Wednesday. The encounter took place at Shahpurji Enclave in Kolkataaround 3:30pm.
PunjabPolice have been chasing Jaipal Bhullar since last 20 days in connection withthe killing of two assistant sub-inspectors in Jagraon. Besides, he was wantedin Haryana, Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh for over 40 cases related to murder,extortion, kidnapping, robbery and smuggling.
JaipalSingh Bhullar alias Manjit Singh, son of a retired Assistant-Sub-Inspector fromPunjab police, entered the crime world in 2003.
In 2003, at Speed FundAcademy, a Punjab government sports training centre in Ludhiana, childhoodfriends Jaipal and Amandeep Singh alias Happy 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.
In July 2004, seven men, five ofthem barely in their 20s, arrested for the sensational kidnapping ofseven-year-old Chirag, son of a cinema-hall owner in Ludhiana, among them wasJaipal Singh, a Ferozepur boy.
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, whosefather had met with an accident, got Shera to “help” him as his family wasfacing a financial crunch. The task: Get Raja freed 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.
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.