New Delhi: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has arrested a key associate of notorious jailed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi for his involvement in harbouring his members involved in various criminal cases including the RPG attack on the Intelligence Headquarters of Punjab Police, Mohali.
The arrested accused Vikas Singh was also involved in harbouring the executors of the RPG attack on the Intelligence Headquarters of Punjab Police. Arrested on Tuesday, Singh, a resident of Lucknow had harboured Deepak Surakhpur and Divyanshu resident of Faizabad, who executed the RPG Attack on intelligence headquarters in Mohali in May last year.
The investigation revealed that Vikas had given shelter to Deepak Surakhpur and Divyanshu in his house in village Devgarh, Janpad Ayodhya and his flat in 77/04 A Block, Gomti Nagar Vistar in Lucknow many times.
Vikas Singh is accused in 10 criminal cases for the offences of murder, attempt to murder, arms act & gangster act. NIA investigations have revealed that Deepak Surakhpur was introduced to Vikas by Vicky Midhukhera, another associate and friend of Lawrence Bishnoi. Vikas had connected Divyanshu, already known to him, to the Lawrence Bishnoi syndicate. The duo were also involved in numerous targetted / contract killings, including of businessman Sanjay Biyani in Nanded and Rana Kandhowalia in Punjab.
Vikas Singh also harboured another accused namely Rinku after Rana Kandowalia's murder case, the NIA said. Further, at the beginning of 2020, after a double murder case in Chandigarh (at the direction of Lawrence) Monu Dagar, Pradhan, Cheema, and Rajan were in Lucknow with Vikas Singh.
The investigation has also revealed that many gangsters/ associates from other states like Rinku, Rajpal (MP) and Bhati (MP) were also harboured by Vikas Singh. "The present case relates to the terrorist-gangster conspiracy hatched by members of Lawrence Bishnoi criminal syndicates/gangs based in India and abroad, to raise funds and recruit youth to carry out terrorist acts in Delhi and other parts of the country," the NIA said.
The investigations so far have shown that the conspiracy was hatched in jails of different states and was being executed by an organized network of operatives based abroad. NIA has already established the involvement of the terror syndicate in several sensational terror cases, including the targetted killing of Pradeep Kumar, a Dera Sacha Sauda follower in 2022 and the killing of Raju Thehth in Sikar, Rajasthan, besides the the sensational killing of famous Punjabi singer Sidhu Moosewala and the RPG attack in Punjab in May 2022.
NIA has to date arrested 15 accused and has charge-sheeted 14 accused, including Lawrence Bishnoi, in the terror-gangster conspiracy case. The others named in the chargesheet are Jagdeep Singh alias Jaggu Bhagwanpuria, Sandeep alias Kala Jatheri, Virender Pratap alias Kala Rana, Joginder Singh, Rajesh Kumar alias Raju Mota, Raj Kumar alias Raju Basodi, Anil Chippi, Naresh Yadav alias Naresh Sethi alias Seth, Mohammad Shahbaz Ansari, Satinderjit Singh alias Satwinder alias Goldy Brar, Sachin Thapan alias Sachin Thapan Bishnoi, Anmol Bishnoi alias Bhanu and Vikramjit Singh alias Vikram Brar.
NIA had filed the chargesheet in the instant case on March 24 under various sections of IPC, UA(P) Act 1967 and Arms Act, 1959. Further investigations into the conspiracy are continued as part of NIA’s efforts to destroy the growing nexus between terrorists, gangsters and drug smugglers, and to dismantle their funding and infrastructure.
