At one point in time, the two gangsters who were killed in an exchange of fire with the Punjab Police at Hoshiar Nagar village in Amritsar had agreed to surrender in front of media persons, but soon changed their mind, according to a police officer who was part of the operation.
Manpreet Singh, alias Mannu, and Jagroop Singh, alias Roopa, who were suspected to be among the six shooters who killed Punjabi singer Sidhu Moose Wala, were eliminated in a five-hour-long encounter at an abandoned house, where they were holed up, near the India-Pakistan border on July 20. The singer was shot dead at Jawahar Ke village in Mansa on May 29.
According to Prithipal Singh, in-charge of Crime Investigation Agency (CIA), Mansa, after having a fierce hour-long gun battle, the shooters slowed down and had a brief interaction with cops laying siege to the building and agreed to surrender, but started firing again in a few minutes.
Prithipal Singh, who was part of the operation, said that they got information that both shooters were hiding inside the abandoned house. “We surrounded the spot. The moment we approached the house, they (Mannu and Roopa) opened fire on us and we fired back. This continued for at least an hour,” he said.
“Initially, they were firing very heavily, but after some time they slowed down. We were making continuous announcements for them to surrender. They interacted with us for a brief period from the roof. We again asked them to come down and surrender. They agreed, but told us to call the press. We agreed and asked them to hold fire for at least 15 minutes. But they again started firing heavily within five minutes. After that there was no communication with them,” said the cop, who is also a member of the special investigation team (SIT) probing Moose Wala’s murder case.
{{/usCountry}}“Initially, they were firing very heavily, but after some time they slowed down. We were making continuous announcements for them to surrender. They interacted with us for a brief period from the roof. We again asked them to come down and surrender. They agreed, but told us to call the press. We agreed and asked them to hold fire for at least 15 minutes. But they again started firing heavily within five minutes. After that there was no communication with them,” said the cop, who is also a member of the special investigation team (SIT) probing Moose Wala’s murder case.
{{/usCountry}}The CIA in-charge said that investigations revealed that Mannu and Roopa remained hidden in Punjab after the high-profile murder and did not attempt to leave the state. “We traced them through CCTV footage of June 21 at Samalsar. Following their trail, we were able to find their location. Now, we are after Deepak Mundi and we have strong leads about his whereabouts,” he said.
Mannu and Roopa were part of the Punjab module that attacked Moose Wala along with four shooters of the Haryana module. Delhi Police have already arrested three Haryana shooters — Priyavrat Fauji, Kashish, alias Kuldeep, and Ankit Sirsa — while Deepak Mundi is still on the run.
SIT visits encounter site, quizzes house owner
The three-member SIT constituted by Punjab Police to probe the shootout visited the abandoned house at Hoshiar Nagar village on Saturday and quizzed the property owner, Balwinder Singh Billa.
The SIT members spent a few hours at the encounter site and examined the building. While questioning Billa, the cops reportedly went deep into the records of his property. As per villagers, he had purchased the building along with agricultural land adjoining it around five years back.
A police official privy to the investigations said the team also met the doctors who conducted the postmortem of the two gangsters.
Meanwhile, the SIT probing Moose Wala’s murder has been granted five more days to interrogate alleged shooter Ankit Sirsa and Sachin Chaudhary, alias Sachin Bhiwani, who is accused of harbouring four shooters.
The duo was brought to Mansa from Delhi, where they arrested on July 4, on transit remand on July 14. The court had sent them to eight-day police custody, which ended on Saturday. Both were presented in court again, which extended their remand till July 28 after the SIT submitted that it needs to quiz them further to recover the weapons used in the crime and arrest Deepak Mundi.
(With inputs by Surjit Singh in Amritsar)