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.

While they were on the job, they heard the area watchman coming towards them. “We hid behind the car and when he came near, we bundled him inside the car. Ramandeep took his cap, baton and torch and played watchman to avoid suspicion of the patrolling police parties,” Jaipal reportedly said.

Soon, Rajiv was inside the shop. He first opened the safe and pocketed Rs 5,000. “Rajiv kept on passing the weapons to me. He passed around 15 rifles, and then revolvers and cartridges. We remained inside the shop for around 25 minutes,” he said.

Before returning to their hideout in Ferozepur, they used the watchman’s belt to tie him with a tree and stuffed the bundle of Rs 5,000 in his pocket.

“In Ferozepur, we removed the slips of the pistols and destroyed them. We picked up around 20 weapons and few cartridges and buried the remaining in a pit in a house,” Jaipal reportedly told the police.

The police said they will also interrogate him about the Sector-33 robbery and the murder of Amarjeet, the owner of Sham Mall in Sector 34.