Raids Across North India By Anti-Terror Agency In Crackdown On Gangsters

New Delhi:

In a massive crackdown on gangsters – operating from both India and abroad, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) today raided around 50 locations across north India.

The raids are being conducted in coordination with local police forces at locations linked to various gangsters in Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan, Delhi and adjoining areas, including the home of Canada-based gangster Goldy Brar in Punjab’s Muktsar. 

Officials said these gangsters had come on the radar of the anti-terror agency after recent investigation in some terror cases revealed a nexus between the gangsters and terrorists.

Some of the gangsters, including Lawrence Bishnoi – the chief suspect in Punjabi singer Sidhu Moose Wala’s murder, are also operating from prisons, they added. 

The centre had also sent multiple alerts to Punjab police over the past two months regarding the growing network of state-based gangsters, officials said. 

Sources say the Union Home Ministry then asked the NIA to carry out intelligence-led coordinated operations against these gangsters across India, and also consider their international links.

The raids are intended to arrest the local handlers of gangsters who are involved in terror cases., sources said, adding that 

The growing nexus between the terrorists and Punjab-based gangsters had come into the focus after the killing of Sidhu Moose Wala. The singer was shot dead in his SUV near his village Moosa in Punjab’s Mansa district on June 29.

A day after Moose Wala was murdered, Goldy Brar had admitted in a Facebook post that he planned it to avenge the killing of another gangster. Goldy Brar is a close aide of jailed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi.