Punjab: Three including AAP worker held with six illegal weapons

Austria-made Glock pistol also recovered

Deepak Goyal (third from left) was arrested on Tuesday. (Express Photo)

Listen to this article

00:00

1x 1.5x 1.8x

The CIA wing of Khanna Police arrested three persons including one local worker of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) with six illegal weapons including an Austria-made 9 mm Glock pistol.

Khanna police said that Deepak Goyal of Maloud, in his thirties, was arrested with five illegal pistols. He is a local AAP worker. He was arrested after two of his accomplices – Akashdeep Singh of Nathumajra village of Malerkotla and Parminder Singh alias Pindri of Saharan Majra village of Maloud- were arrested earlier on January 26 and 30, respectively.

Police said that after a 9 mm Glock pistol was recovered from Akashdeep on January 26 during checking, his interrogation led to arrest of Parminder Singh who further revealed that Goyal had also procured five illegal weapons from them.

In a raid conducted late Tuesday, police recovered five country-made pistols including one of 32 bore and four of 315 bore from Goyal. A total of 22 cartridges were also recovered. The imported Glock pistol is largely used by Punjab Police cops only.

Police said that Goyal had procured these weapons ahead of Punjab assembly elections last year. Sources said that Goyal was having an enmity with a man from Khanna due to which he got weapons with a motive to kill him and also for his self-defence.

Goyal had joined AAP in presence of party’s Punjab affairs co-incharge Jarnail Singh and Payal MLA Manwinder Singh Giaspura. His father Sanjeev Goyal had also joined AAP. The family was earlier associated with Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD). The family owns several seed factories and rice shellers in the area.

Addressing a press conference, Kaustubh Sharma, IG Ludhiana range, said that during checking on January 26, Akashdeep Singh who was traveling in an Etios Liva vehicle was stopped and a Glock pistol was recovered with one cartridge. During his interrogation, it was revealed that he used to procure illegal weapons from Parminder Singh alias Pindri who was then arrested on January 30. Parminder further revealed that Goyal had also taken five weapons from them.

Story continues below this ad

Khanna DSP (investigation) Jashandeep Singh Gill said that Akashdeep and Parminder were history-sheeters. Akashdeep was already booked in five cases for house-trespass and keeping illegal weapons. Six FIRs were registered against Parminder including that for attempt to murder, illegal weapons etc.

A fresh FIR under the sections 25/54/59 of IPC was registered against the trio at Maloud police station.

Divya Goyal

Divya Goyal is a Principal Correspondent with The Indian Express, based in Punjab. Her interest lies in exploring both news and feature stories, with an effort to reflect human interest at the heart of each piece. She writes on gender issues, education, politics, Sikh diaspora, heritage, the Partition among other subjects. She has also extensively covered issues of minority communities in Pakistan and Afghanistan. She also explores the legacy of India's partition and distinct stories from both West and East Punjab. She is a gold medalist from the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC), Delhi, the most revered government institute for media studies in India, from where she pursued English Journalism (Print). Her research work on “Role of micro-blogging platform Twitter in content generation in newspapers” had won accolades at IIMC. She had started her career in print journalism with Hindustan Times before switching to The Indian Express in 2012. Her investigative report in 2019 on gender disparity while treating women drug addicts in Punjab won her the Laadli Media Award for Gender Sensitivity in 2020. She won another Laadli for her ground report on the struggle of two girls who ride a boat to reach their school in the border village of Punjab. ... Read More

Stay updated with the latest - Click here to follow us on Instagram