Information received on interrogating wanted gangster led to 23 arrests: Punjab DGP

Punjab Police on Thursday claimed to have nabbed 23 criminals from Ferozepur and adjoining states Haryana and Rajasthan, based on information revealed by a gangster who was arrested in November last year.

Wanted gangster Sukhpreet Singh, alias Budha, was deported from Armenia and arrested when he landed at the Delhi airport in November 2019.

"Budha made several revelations, which led the state police to solve many untraced heinous crimes in Punjab," Director General of Police Dinkar Gupta said.

He said the arrested criminals were facing charges of murder, dacoity and extortion, kidnapping and targeted killing.

Police have recovered 36 firearms from the criminals and four shops dealing in guns have been sealed, Gupta said in a statement here.

"Further operations are in progress to identify and crack other links of these accused," he said.

Taking a serious note of "large scale discrepancies and loopholes" in the stock, sale and purchase records of arms and ammunition of arms dealers and licence holders, a state-wide audit is also being carried out, the police chief said.

The Punjab DGP said police arrested Ashish of Tikri village in Meerut district on January 30 based on information received from Budha. Ashish was the main supplier of illegal automatic weapons used by the criminals, he added.