Delhi Police arrest Arsh Dalla’s alleged hitmen near Pragati Maidan tunnel

The criminals were wanted in two target killing incidents in Punjab, including last month’s murder of Congress leader Baljinder Singh Balli in Moga

At least a dozen personnel of the counter intelligence (CI) unit of the special cell, the anti-terror squad of the Delhi Police, had a narrow escape during an early morning operation on Thursday when an alleged hitman of fugitive gangster-turned-terrorist Arsh Dalla tried to hurl a hand grenade at them while his associate fired a bullet to escape arrest from near the Pragati Maidan tunnel on the Outer Ring Road. Both have been arrested.

For representational purposes only. (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

The criminals, wanted in two target killing incidents in Punjab including last month’s murder of Congress leader Baljinder Singh Balli in Moga, were overpowered and their attempt to harm the raiding team was averted, senior special cell officers aware of the operation said.

“One criminal fired a bullet at the raiding team that was led by the assistant commissioner of police (ACP) of the CI unit. The bullet luckily did not harm any police personnel. The other criminal, meanwhile, took out a live hand grenade from his bag. But before he could pull out the safety pin, our team overpowered him and his associate. Apart from the live hand grenade, one pistol and five cartridges were recovered from the duo,” said one of the special cell officers.

The arrested men were identified as Gurinder Singh, a 24-year-old resident of Firozpur in Punjab, and Krishan Singh (25) from Faridkot. They had carried out two target killings in Punjab’s Talwandi and Moga in June and September this year on the directions of their handler Arshdeep Singh Gill aka Arsh Dalla, a gangster-turned-terrorist who is believed to be hiding in Canada and carrying out extortions, target killings, and anti-national activities mostly in Punjab, the special cell said. The duo is wanted by the Punjab police in the two murder cases.

On Wednesday night, another special cell officer said the CI team received a tip off that the two suspects would be travelling to Uttar Pradesh via Delhi, and that they had already left Punjab on a state roadways bus. By midnight, the team learnt that the duo had already arrived in Delhi and had deboarded the bus at Kashmere Gate terminal. The intel also stated that the two would be meeting their associate on the Outer Ring Road near the Pragati Maidan tunnel before heading towards Uttar Pradesh.

“We were told that the suspects had taken an auto from the bus terminal to reach the meeting point near the Pragati Maidan tunnel. Our team members positioned themselves around the meeting point and spotted the two suspects waiting at an isolated place and surrounded them. The suspects were asked to surrender. However, one of them fired a bullet without provocation. The other suspect tried to hurl a hand grenade at us, but we overpowered him and snatched the grenade before he could pull the safety pin,” the second officer said.

The special cell officers said that they were unaware that the suspects were carrying a live hand grenade while travelling in a crowded public bus.

“We are interrogating the arrested criminals to ascertain the source of the hand grenade and the purpose for which they were carrying the explosive item with them during their journey from Punjab to Uttar Pradesh,” the first officer said.

Sharing details of the two murder cases the arrested suspects were wanted in, the officer said that in June, the duo shot dead an employee of a trader at his shop in Talwandi town area of Punjab’s Bathinda district. It was a case of mistaken identity because the assailants had come to kill the trader but ended up killing his employee at the shop. It was a case of target killing executed on the directions of Arsh Dalla, who had been demanding extortion money from the businessman.

On September 23, the duo along with their aides shot dead local Congress leader Baljinder Singh, alias Balli, at his home in Moga’s Dala village. Balli was Dalla’s neighbour in the village and both were rivals. A few hours after Balli’s killing, Dalla claimed responsibility for it through a social media post.