Jaipal, mastermind of the gang involved in a spate of robberies, bought an iron-cutter for Rs 1,800 before looting the gun house in Hoshiarpur, the police said. Jaipal was arrested by the Chandigarh Police on Tuesday along with his three accomplices.

According to sources, Jaipal looted the gun house to arrange for weapons to commit crimes. On April 9, along with Sanjiv, Bhupinder, Chandu and Ramandeep, he snatched a Toyota Innova car and reached Hoshiarpur at 2.30 pm.

First, they did a recce of the shop and the area and zeroed in on the tools required to break in. “We had an iron rod in the car. We went to an ironsmith and got it sharpened. Then we bought an iron-cutter for Rs 1,800 from a shop near the gun house,” Jaipal reportedly told interrogators.

After readying their tools, they went to Kartarpur Road to plan the robbery and assign roles. There they decided to snatch another car to avoid suspicion.

“We saw another Innova car on the road. We chased the vehicle, overtook it and at gunpoint asked the driver to step out. We tied him with a tree, destroyed his sim card and took away the car,” he told the police.

After that, they asked Bhupinder to return to Ferozepur with the first car and arrange some place to hide the weapons that they were going to get. On way to Hoshiarpur, they had dinner on a roadside shop near Jalandhar.

Around 2 am they reached the gun house and Sanjiv broke open the main lock with the rod and used the iron-cutter to break open the shutter.

... contd.