BATHINDA - A special task force has arrested a Bambiha gang member, Jagdeep Singh, of Moga, with a US-made pistol from the Adarsh Nagar area of the city. In his initial interrogation, Jagdeep has revealed gang member Sukha Singh of Dunike village in Moga was funding the group from Canada to strengthen its criminal activities in Punjab.

Are Punjab gangs sending members to Canada to do crimes and send proceeds of those crimes back to their gangs in Punjab?

SSP Bhupinderjit Singh Virk said: “We have arrested a Bambiha group associate with a weapon and it has come to light that Sukha from Canada is funding the group. We will follow it up.”

The SSP said Jagdeep got recently associated with the group. The police have registered a case against four others gangsters — Beant Singh of Mandi Mustafa in Moga, Rajwinder Singh of Muktsar, Dharminder Singh of Goniana and Sukha Singh of Duneke village in Moga — at the Cantt police station.

Task force in charge Jasvir Singh said SI Gurdeep Singh got a tip-off that Jagdeep and others linked to the group, with a large quantity of arms, were planning a strike. The police later arrested Jagdeep from the city. Sukha was aiding gangsters to purchase weapons to carry out criminal activities in the state, he said. Jagdeep has been remanded in two-day police custody for questioning.

In 2016, gangster Davinder Bambiha was killed in a four-hour police encounter near Rampura Phul in Bathinda district. Bambiha (25), a native of Moga district, was an accused in 20 cases of murder, attempt to murder, extortion and dacoity.

Despite the encounter, his group continued to be active in the state. In 2018, a poultry-farm owner, Hardev Singh Gogi Jattana, was shot allegedly by the gang members on the Phul-Gill Kalan village road in Rampura area.

Claiming Jattana to be an informer, the gang members later claimed responsibility for the killing on their Facebook page, saying Sukhpreet Budda Kussa and Aman Jaito carried out the killing.

Claiming to have avenged Bambiha’s killing, they said the 2016 encounter happened on a tip-off by Jattana to the police. The gang members face around 40 cases in Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan.

Gang Faces 40 Cases in three states

Gangster Davinder Bambiha was killed in an encounter near Rampura Phul in Bathinda district

Bambiha (25), a native of Moga, faced 20 cases of murder, attempt to murder, extortion and dacoity

There are 40 cases registered against the members of the gang in Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan