Ferozepur, Jan 13 (PTI) Ferozepur Police on Friday said they have arrested an associate of Canada-based gangster-turned-terrorist Arshdeep Singh alias Arsh Dalla.

The arrested gangster has been identified as Gurpiar Singh, they said.

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Gurpiar was arrested Friday morning when he was coming from Moga on a bike. When he reached near Talwandi Bhai, the police party at a checkpoint signalled him to stop but Gurpiar opened fire at them with his .38 bore revolver and tried to escape, police said.

Gurpiar was hit in the leg in return fire by police and was arrested. He was admitted to Zira civil hospital.

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When the matter was reported to them, senior police officials including DIG Ranjit Singh Dhillon, SSP Kanwardeep Kaur reached the spot.

The SSP said Gurpiar had come to conduct recce of the house of a prominent jeweller in Talwandi Bhai.

She said that on November 12 too, the members of Arsh Dalla gang had come to the residence of the jeweller and fired shots in the air to threaten him.

The DIG said the gangsters were probably planning another attack to force the jeweller to pay ransom to them, but the plan was foiled by police who were on the lookout for the gangsters.

Last Saturday, Punjab Police had conducted raids at suspected hideouts across the state of associates of Arshdeep Singh.

The operation was aimed at disrupting the nexus between terrorists, gangsters, and drug smugglers based in India and abroad, Director General of Police (DGP), Punjab, Gaurav Yadav had said last week.

According to Punjab Police, Canada-based Dalla is a most wanted criminal and has been involved in various criminal activities in Punjab and abroad.

He is a Category-A gangster turned terrorist and is a KTF operative, which is a banned terrorist organisation.

Arshdeep had escaped to Canada in 2020 after murdering Sukkha Lamme, one of his associates, said police.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)