History-sheeter wanted for murder during parole held in Chandigarh

A countrymade pistol and two live cartridges were also recovered from him

Chandigarh Police on Saturday arrested a notorious criminal who was wanted for the murder of a painter in Mohali’s Balongi in June this year.

A countrymade pistol and two live cartridges were also recovered from him.

Identified as Balwant, 23, of the rehabilitation colony in Dhanas, he has 12 cases of murder, rape, dacoity, theft and rioting registered against him at various police stations in the tricity, and has been convicted in three of them.

Balwant was on a motorcyle when he tried to turn back and flee at a naka set up near the Sarangpur botanical garden on the Mullanpur-Chandigarh road.

As his bike stopped, he left it and ran towards the adjoining forest area. Police team, led by inspector Ranjit Singh, chased and caught him. Besides a pistol, which he claimed to have procured from Muzaffarpur in Uttar Pradesh, police seized his Bullet motorcycle. A case under Arms Act has been registered at the Sarangpur police station.

12 FIRs, 3 convictions

Until his recent conviction, Balwant had been booked for various crimes in seven cases in Chandigarh (registered at Sectors 11, 19, 34 and 49, besides Maloya and Sarangpur) and for dacoity in Sector 14, Panchkula, and rape in Zirakpur.

He was awarded 10-year-jail in the rape case, seven years for the dacoity in Panchkula and four for a dacoity in Chandigarh.

Amid the Covid-19 lockdown, he was granted parole as part of measures to decongest jails in March this year. Since then, he has been booked twice for rioting in area falling under the Sector-36 police station and for a murder at Badhmajra village in Balongi.

Sanjay Yadav, 32, a painter, was allegedly stabbed to death by Balwant and his two aides on June 28. The trigger: Yadav’s wife had confronted them on spotting them urinating near her house.

While they left initially, they returned at night with more men and called Yadav outside and started beating him up. When the wife tried to rescue him, the men assaulted her as well until she fainted. When she regained consciousness, she saw her husband collapsing on the road with stab wounds, while the assailants fled the spot.