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Thane police arrest Punjab militants turned highway robbers

Jake Khan in Bombay

The arrest of two former militants of the Khalistan Commando Force by the Thane police last week has unravelled several mysteries that had foxed the police for several years now.

The spate of truck hijackings and robberies on state highways had rocked the police. According to an estimate, in the last couple of years, over 79 trucks had disappeared along with goods worth over Rs 1 billion. Although the modus operandi in all these highway robberies was more or less similar, the cops were certain that the robberies were the handiwork of more than one gang. Little did they know that one of the gangs active was that of reformed terrorists who had turned over a new leaf and went on from terrorism to robbery.

Following a tip-off that a gang of highway robbers was held up in Chandigarh, a special crack squad of cops left for Punjab to arrest the trio. They were identified as Pyara Singh Sasi, Gurinder Singh alias kara and Jitendra Pal Singh alias JP. The last two had been arrested under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act in 1991 by the Chandigarh police and had served time in Punjab jails for over six years. They were released in 1997, after which they took to robbery.

"Our teams trailed them from Rajasthan to Madhya Pradesh to Punjab where they were finally arrested by us," said the superintendent of Thane rural police, Param Bir Singh.

The modus operandi of these gangs was similar to the one used by the highway robbers throughout the country. The gangs would tail loaded trucks from godowns in New Mumbai, Thane and Bhiwandi. As the truck reached an isolated spot, the pursuers would intercept it and decamp with the goods, at times killing the driver, said the senior police inspector of the Thane rural crime branch, Sopanrao Mahangade.

Various police stations, including Manikpur, Shahapur, Daman and Alora had registered the cases of highway robbery, in which goods like medicines, polyurethane granules, textile fabrics and other expensive materials had been robbed. But no breakthrough was in sight.

"We were aghast at the audacity of these truck hijackers and robbers who managed to dodge the police after committing the offences with impunity. They must have robbed goods worth over Rs 1 billion and hijacked over 79 heavy vehicles in the last couple of years," claimed J P Agarwal, a member of the Transport Association of Maharashtra and proprietor of Agarwal Roadlines.

According to Agarwal, since last year they had led several delegations to the director general of police, Arvind Inamdar and Bombay police commissioner, R H Mendonca, but to no avail.

The police have so far recovered six vehicles from the gang, including five jeeps and a tanker, and detected 10 major cases of highway robberies ranging from goods worth Rs 6 lakh to Rs 50 lakh. With the arrest of two militants, the police also solved the murder of two drivers who had been killed and their dead bodies dumped in a jungle in 1998.

Although the police have busted one major gang, they are not complacent. "We know several other gangs are active and we are on their trail," Singh sad. According to the police, the arrest of these three militants led them to one Ramzan Shaikh Pahelwan in Nashik, who used to buy stolen material from them. Shaikh's arrest is likely to help the cops in cracking several other cases, as the arrest of the militants is regarded only as the tip of the iceberg.

"We believe that some 20-25 men are involved in these crimes," Mahangade admitted.

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