Crime king Topi faces 11 cases in Amritsar alone

So trigger-happy is Topi that he opens fire at the smallest provocation and on several occasions his victims have been the cops themselves. After two of his men were killed and six others arrested during Friday’s encounter,the police have started a campaign to ‘neutralise’ his entire gang as criticism mounts against the Amritsar police for their failure to act against him. Topi was followed from here on his way to Chandigarh by the Gurdaspur police while the Amritsar police had no clue about his whereabouts.

He was earlier arrested by the police three times but was released on bail. So deadly are he and his gang members,including his girl friend Ranjit Kaur,that earlier this year they had opened fire on Superintendent of Police Malwinder Singh,killing his gun man,at the busy Lawrence Road here. “He has 11 cases of robbery,attempt to murder and vehicles thefts here,” said police sources,adding that Topi was shifting base and had rushed to Himachal Pradesh many times for a safer refuge.

The most recent known crime he committed in the city was releasing one of his strongmen from a police team that had come from Kartarpur near Jalandhar. When the police party was taking the criminal away after his arrest,Topi’s team attacked it and freed the man from their custody. His gang is so organised that all the men gathered at the crime scene vanished in no time.

“We have been after Topi and some others for their involvement in several robbery and theft cases. We have started a campaign to neutralise his whole gang and many of their members are underground,” said Amritsar Commissioner of Police Parampal Singh Sidhu. Political patronage has also reportedly played a part in keeping Topi free for so long,something Sidhu emphatically denied.

“His connections with top criminals in the bigger city are also under the scanner. He was recently working from Jammu & Kashmir where he takes the stolen cars and sell them,” said Gurdaspur SSP Varinder Pal Singh,adding that he was wanted by them in connection with a number of crime incidents on the Punjab-Jammu & Kashmir border.

The intelligence officials said that they have launched a campaign to find the maximum information on his gang members and,on the basis of their inputs,more arrests were likely in the coming days.