Hardlook: Gangsters of Punjab

“Just as there are 317 gangsters cooling their heels in various jails of the state, there are 600-700 members roaming free,” said a jail official who did not wish to be identified.

READ | Catching them young: Students look up to their gangster ‘bros’ 

Police officials, especially in the hinterland of Malwa, concede some gangsters enjoy political patronage.

Rocky himself graduated to being a politician when he contested the 2012 Assembly elections as an Independent from Fazilka and won over 30,000 votes.

The link of gangsters to sports is no less intriguing. Rocky was a hammer-thrower. Jaipal is a hammer thrower. So was Jaipal’s gangster buddy Gurshahid Singh alias Shera Khubban, who was killed in a police encounter four years ago. They had met at a sports tournament and from there, their association began. Their other gangmate Tirath Dhilwan is a kabaddi champion of yore.

Of the about 60 gangs listed with the police, the Jaipal Singh-Tirath Dhilwan gang, which is the main suspect in Rocky’s murder, is considered the most notorious. The duo are absconding.

“Jaipal and Tirath are most dreaded for their involvement in contract killings, extortion rackets, drug trade, and highway robberies,” the jail official said.

What worries the police is the cult-like following that gangsters have among youth, even among school and college students. The involvement of known gang members in student elections is well-known. “Punjab’s youth eye gangster lifestyle and even invite gangsters to student political functions. This is a matter of serious concern,” said a police officer, posted in Malwa region.

‘People love him, which is why he has been elected councillor’

Kala Dhanaula, 40 

KINGPIN OF Kala Dhanaula gang and a history-sheeter in the records of Dhanaula Police Station in Barnala district, Gurmeet Singh Mann alias Kala Dhanaula may be in Nabha jail right now, but he remains the overlord of Dhanaula, where he was elected councillor last year from his prison cell.

Booked in 49 cases of murder, attempt to murder, abduction, tresspassing, and other cases, he was acquitted in some 20 cases after witnesses turned hostile. He is now serving time for convictions in 10 cases, according to police records.

Elected unopposed to the municipal council of Dhanaula in 2008, Dhanaula was elected a councillor yet again last year for another six-year term . His father, Gurjant Singh Mann and mother Baljeet Kaur, too, were elected councillors. Three out of 12 wards were wrested by Kala’s family and his father was unanimously elected president of the council. During the previous term, it was his mother who was council president.

Mother Baljeet Kaur recalls how Kala was the only one to survive out of her six sons, “He was an angry teenager. He would beat up others and come home. But he never said anything to the village girls. He was rather protective towards them. He pays shagun to all the village girls at their wedding. People love him here. That is the reason he was elected the councillor. Though some of them complained against him recently and got him suspended. But we have filed an appeal now,” she says making a point.

Not a single person in the village was willing to talk about him. Police officials recall he called people in his ward from inside Nabha jail and asked them to vote for him.

“I am an Akali,” said father Gurjant Singh pointing towards a picture of Kala Dhanaula with Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal dating back to 2009, handing a cheque of grants to Kala, hanging on the wall of Gurjant’s bedroom.

The 40- year- old Kala’s first brush with crime was in 1995, when he was 19. He was booked for beating up a group of students. In 20 years since then, he has had 49 cases registered against him in various districts including Sangrur, Barnala, Dhuri and Patiala.

He got married to a woman from Longowal, and has a daughter studying in a school in Kasauli. “He is a notified bad character, now in category C in this police station. Earlier he was in category A. The police has heaved a sigh of relief ever since he is in jail,” said a Barnala-based police officer.

Akalis have, meanwhile, disassociated themselves with Dhanaula, saying he was never an Akali leader. Parambans Singh Romana, president, Youth Akali Dal said Dhanaula has been contesting elections and winning as an Independent.

Tirath’s house at Dhilwan village is locked since a year. (Source: express photo by Kamleshwar Singh)

Village still remembers him as a shining kabaddi player

Tirath Singh Dhilwan, 26
An accomplice of dreaded criminal Jaipal Singh, 26-year-old Tirath Singh Dhilwan is a co-accused with him in Rocky murder case. Belonging to nondescript Dhilwan village in Faridkot, Tirath’s entry into the world of crime came with the murder of his brother-in-law, Mandip Singh, in Moga on November 21, 2010.

A 20-year-old then, studying towards a Bachelors degree and like all Punjab youth, aspiring to go abroad, Tirath had gone to Moga following complaints from his elder sister Satvir Kaur that her husband was a drug addict and used to beat her up. A kabaddi player,Tirath beat him up so badly that he succumbed to his injuries. Tirath was booked under 302 IPC and lodged in Ferozepore jail where he came in touch with Jaipal.

According to police, it was Jaipal who helped him escape from police custody when he was being taken to a court in Moga. Even since he has been eluding the police.

A notorious member of the Shera Khubban gang, Tirath is known for highway robberies, extortion and murders in various parts of Punjab and Rajasthan. In January this year, he was accused of smuggling heroin weighing over 1.44 quintal worth several crores of rupees from across the border. His accomplices were arrested by Mohali police but Tirath gave the police the slip.

Sources said he was declared a proclaimed offender in his brother-in-law’s murder case. After that he was booked in over two dozen cases of different crimes. He never uses a cellphone so that the police get no clue about his whereabouts.

A brother to two sisters and the only son of his elderly parents, Tirath is remembered by residents of his village as a shining kabaddi player, who had got a passport made to immigrate to Australia so that he could send money home to his parents.

When The Indian Express team reached his house in his village, it was locked. Neighbours refused to talk about him. A resident said, “We saw him only 6-7 years ago. Not after that. His parents left home a year ago for an undisclosed location because they were always questioned by the police about their son’s whereabouts,: they said.

The Bajakhana Police Station has maintained his history sheet under which a number of cases under sections 396 IPC and 379 IPC, robbery and theft, have been registered against him. “He never committed any crime in this area. We have not registered any case against him here. We maintain this file after police from other districts informed the police station at his home town about his crimes,” said a police officer from Baja Khana Police station in Faridkot.

The Punjab Police has been investigating his involvement with Pakistan-based drug smugglers now after the Mohali police recovered a SIM card from his accomplices two month ago. The SIM was found to be used to contact a Pakistan-based drug supplier.

Father, former police inspector, says ‘shoot him, do whatever, I don’t care’ 

Jaipal Singh, 30s

A LOCKED bungalow in Dasmesh Nagar with a Labrador barking inside gives away nothing about its owners. Neighbours say they don’t know the owners of the house, and claim not to have seen them for some days.

But the district police know the house well. It belongs to Bhupinder Singh, a retired police inspector. The police keep a watch over it for another reason. Jaipal Singh, the notorious gangster, known across police stations in Punjab, and the key suspect in the killing in Himachal Pradesh of a rival gangster-turned-politician Jaswinder Rocky, is the house owner’s son..

“Whenever Jaipal’s name comes up in relation to some crime, we find the house locked for few days. His father openly says he has no connection with his son, and police is free to do whatever they want,” said Sukhjinder Singh, a sub-inspector with Ferozepur city police, who keep tabs on Jaipal’s house.

“His father says ‘Shoot Jaipal, do whatever, for all I care’,” Sukhjinder said.

Sukhchain Singh, a head constable in Ferozepur city, said, “Jaipal is a known figure now, a complete contrast from his parents who have a reputation in the area.” Their younger son is settled abroad, far away from his brother’s life in crime, he said.

Neighbour Megh Singh said the house was lying locked for the past 4-5 days. Jaipal himself has not been seen in this area for over eight years.

Jaipal has over 40 FIRs against him in Punjab, Haryana and even Rajasthan, mostly for robberies, some of them in banks, car snatchings, and a kidnapping. Before he declared on Facebook that he had killed Rocky, he had been accused of the murder of rival gangsters Sukha Kahlwan and Karmeeti,

In another life, Jaipal was a national-level hammer thrower, before he turned to highway and robberies. Now he runs the dreaded Shera Khubban gang after Khubban, himself a hammer thrower, was killed in an encounter in 2012. Vicky Gounder, now in jail, is also a gang member.

Jaipal came to the notice of the police first in 2005 when he along with a gang member Happy Deora kidnapped a seven-year-old boy in Ludhiana. The boy was the son of one of Deora’s relatives. They were arrested and the child recovered. Undeterred by this temporary setback, and Deora’s death, Jaipal continued notching up more crime statistics, including robbing of Rs 15 lakh from an NRI couple’s hotel room. He has been acquitted in many cases.

Police say people fear to depose as witness against him. His name figures in the 2009 Mohali bank robbery and the Rs 1.2 crore December 2014 Panchkula bank heist. He is a PO in Arms Act cases in Rajasthan.

Mehal Singh with the son’s trophies. (Source: Express photo by Gurmeet Singh)

‘He is no longer our son’

Vicky Gounder, 27

Sitting inside his sprawling house spread over 500 sq yards on his farm, Mehal Singh says he is busy looking after his one-year-old granddaughter Sumanpreet Kaur, his daughter’s daughter. “I have expelled my only son Vicky from my property since 2011. He is no longer my son. He has chosen a wrong path. To keep myself busy, I am raising my granddaughter,” says Mehal Singh, the father of Harjinder Singh alias Vicky Gounder, a notorious Punjab gangster with over 20 FIRs, including for murder against him.

Vicky entered the world of crime in 2007, and has been in jail since December 2015.

The father said even after his arrest four months ago, by Taran Taran police, neither he nor his wife had gone to Nabha jail, where he is lodged, to meet him.

Vicky’s paternal uncle Jagdish Singh, however, regularly meets him in jail. “I ask him to come out of all this, but he says he has gone too far and even if he tries to leave the world of crime, his associates will not let him live a peaceful life.” Vicky is now 27 years old.

Following the recent daylight killing of Jaswinder Rocky in Himachal, he celebrated on Facebook and threatened Bathinda SSP who he described as Rocky’s friend. He is an accused, along with Jaipal, in the murder of Sukha Kahlwan at Phagwara. After the murder, the alleged killers had circulated a video in which they are seen doing a bhangra.

No one could have foreseen a life of crime for Vicky. He was a star child of his village, a national-level discus thrower who won three gold and two silver medals. The then DGP of Punjab, MS Bhullar, had honoured him in his village, recalled Jaswinder Kaur, Vicky’s mother, as she showed his old school mementos. The medals have been misplaced.

After shining in the state games in middle school, Vicky was admitted to the Speed Fund Academy, Jalandhar, for further training and studies. “Initially, he performed well, however, later on the coach started telling us that he was getting into petty fights at the academy,” Mehal Singh said.

“We took him for a recruitment test in BSF where he was been selected through the sports quota. But he never joined this job as he was in contact with a Congress politician in Jalandhar who promised him a better lifestyle,” Mehal added.

The family regrets sending him to Jalandhar, where, they say, he changed into a person they do not recognise. Mehal Singh said it was at the sports academy that Vicky came into contact with with Jaipal and Shera, also national-level athletes.

Vicky was involved in the murder of Karmeeti, a member of the rival Rocky gang, who was killed at a dog show in Ferozepur. Vicky had accompanied Jaipal to the show. His name also figures in murder of another gangster Happy Deora, Jaipal’s accomplice.