Gangster Vicky Gounder, who was killed in an encounter along with another gangster Prema Lahoria on Friday evening in a Rajasthan village, had recently obtained an automatic assault rifle from Pakistan through a Hong Kong-based Sikh radical, Punjab’s Director General of Police Suresh Arora said Saturday. Addressing a press conference in Chandigarh, Arora said five police teams of 35 men executed an “intelligence-based operation” in which Gounder, one of the Nabha jail-break masterminds, was killed Friday evening. Two pistols of .32 bore and one pistol of 0.30 bore, and a large quantity of ammunition were recovered from the slain gangsters, along with mobile phones and dongles, used for communication through social media, police said, adding that a Swift Dzire car with a fake number plate was recovered from their hideout, besides many more fake number plates. The police have not been able to find the assault rifle yet. An FIR was registered against Gounder for this two days ago, and it names Ramanjit Singh ‘Romi’ who lives in Hong Kong, and is, according to the police, connected to Sikh radicals and Pakistan’s ISI. AIG Gurmeet Singh Chauhan said five teams were constituted to raid a place owned by a Gounder associate Lakhwinder Singh. Chauhan said the operation started at 5.30 pm and despite repeated appeals to surrender, the gangsters continuously fired at the police, injuring SI Balwinder Singh and ASI Kirpal Singh. “In retaliatory firing, Gounder and Lahoria were shot dead,” said Chauhan. A third person was also killed. Chauhan said the man, who was still to be identified, provided “cover fire” as Gounder and Lahoria tried to escape. Police fired 40 shots and the gangsters fired about a dozen, he said. Some police sources have identified the third man as gangster Sukhpreet Singh, but AIG Chauhan, who was present at the press conference, said police were yet to identify him. An official press release specifically noted that police had prior information through a “reccee” that Gounder and Lahoria had moved to the Rajasthan village where they were shot dead. Chauhan said police only had information they were “high value targets”, and only after they were killed did the police learn that were Gounder and Lahoria. Chauhan said the police shot Gounder and Lahoria as they tried to escape scaling a wall. Photos of Gounder and Lahoria’s bodies show all the injuries are on their faces and on the front of their bodies. Chauhan, who earlier said 10 bullets were fired by a third man providing “cover fire”, said: “Obviously, the person will turn to open fire in the direction where shots were being fired.” A post on a Facebook page, operated by Shera Khuban Aale, condemned the killing of Gounder and Lahoria calling it “false encounter” and threatened to take revenge by killing twice the number of policemen. Asked about this , DGP Arora said, “We will deal with it.”
