New Delhi: On the afternoon of 22 July last year, Jeewanjot Singh Chahal—a former student leader at Chandigarh’s Panjab University, who also goes by the name ‘Jugnu’—was returning from a bhog ceremony in Bahmanwala village in Faridkot. Out of nowhere, three young men appeared on a bike from behind, drew up beside Chahal’s Endeavour SUV and allegedly fired three shots. Some more shots were fired on the parked vehicle as the driver of the SUV, Yadvinder Singh, was already grievously injured.
The Faridkot district police arrested all three men accused of shooting and killing the driver, but later found that the instructions for the task came from abroad.
During their questioning, the arrested trio revealed that the instructions came from one Jaspreet Singh alias Jass Behbal, a Malaysia-based man from Behbal Kalan village who ordered the attack to kill Jugnu, and whose name also featured in the killing of Punjabi singer Shubhdeep Singh Sidhu, also known as Sidhu Moosewala. However, the police cleared him from the case earlier this year.
The Punjab Police Wednesday arrested Behbal at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport after securing his deportation from Malaysia. Top Punjab Police officials identify him as a top operative of the Bambiha gang, run by an Armenia-based gangster Lucky Patial.
Along with him, two more Bambiha gang members, Pawandeep Singh and Ajay Singh alias ‘Ajay Malaysia’, were deported and arrested by Punjab Police. Residents of Rajasthan’s Sri Ganganagar district, both Singh and Ajay Malaysia were wanted in a grenade recovery case of Ludhiana Police.
Extortion in Punjab, rivals in Canada
After arresting the accused for the killing of Yadvinder Singh, the Punjab Police identified that Jugnu was the target of the Bambiha gang in their bid to seek revenge for the killing of their associate Deepak Mann. He was allegedly abducted and killed by the associates of jailed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi and Goldy Brar.
Before the near-fatal attack on him, Jugnu was accused of being involved in the grisly murder of Moosewala by his parents. Jugnu was implicated in the case but was later let off when the police found no evidence of his involvement.
The Punjab Police implicated Jass Behbal in the case and requested Interpol to issue a Red Corner Notice (RCN) against him. In January this year, Interpol issued a Red Corner Notice, formally initiating the process of locating, detaining, and deporting him to India.
“The deportation and arrest of these three fugitives is the culmination of a sustained intelligence-led operation, which continued for several months, during which the movements and activities of the fugitives were closely tracked. The coordinated efforts ultimately led to their detention in Malaysia and deportation to India,” head of Punjab Police’s internal security wing, Amit Prasad, said in a statement Wednesday.
According to police records, Jaspreet belonged to the Behbal Kalan block of Faridkot and had gone to Malaysia in June 2019, with no criminal record at the time. Son of daily wage labourers in Faridkot village, he first appeared in the police records in July 2024 when he had allegedly threatened one commission agent in the state’s Barnala in the name of the Bambiha gang, demanding Rs 50 lakh.
Later, the police in Jaspreet’s home district implicated him in April last year, based on a complaint by a local businessman who alleged he received a call from a number with a +351 prefix, claiming to be Behbal from the Bambiha group, who demanded Rs 1 crore. When he disconnected the call and refused to receive subsequent calls, he complained that he had received a voice message instructing him to “attend the phone otherwise, he will have to face consequences”.
Sources in Punjab Police said that Behbal joined the Patial-led Bambiha gang after coming into contact with another fugitive gangster from his village, Simma Behbal, and went on to become a top operative of the gang.
“During his stay in Malaysia, he came into contact with fugitive gangster Simma Behbal, a resident of the same village, and subsequently joined the Davinder Bambiha Gang. He thereafter began working for the gang and gradually emerged as an important operative and close associate of the foreign-based fugitive gangster Gaurav Patiyal @ Lucky Patiyal. He was involved in extortion, targeted killings and other criminal activities of this gang,” a Punjab Police officer aware of Behbal’s trajectory told ThePrint.
According to sources in the Delhi Police, Jass Behbal was the one who called Banduman Sekhon, earlier a Canada-based operative of the Goldy Dhillon gang who facilitated the shooters involved in the shooting at comedian Kapil Sharma’s Kap’s Cafe in Surrey in Canada’s British Columbia province.
After a threatening call from the Bambiha gang, Sekhon fled to India in August last year and was nabbed by the Crime Branch in November last year. As reported by ThePrint earlier, comedian Sharma’s Kap’s Cafe was targeted in three separate shooting incidents between July and October last year, the responsibility for which was taken by the associates of the Goldy Dhillon and Lawrence Bishnoi gangs.
Ludhiana grenade case
The two other deportees have been taken into custody by the Ludhiana Police as part of the probe into a case related to the recovery of grenades. Sources in the Punjab Police identified Ajay Malaysia as a close associate of Jass Behbal and of another Bambiha gang member, Piyush Pahlwan, who is active in the northern states of Punjab, Haryana and Delhi.
He was arrested by a joint team of Punjab Police’s Anti-Gangster Task Force (AGTF) and Haryana’s Special Task Force as part of a probe into the daylight killing of a property leader in Chandigarh earlier in March. At the time of his arrest, DGP Gaurav Yadav had said that Pahlwan was also wanted in the murder case of Yadvinder Singh in Faridkot.
“Acting on Behbal’s directions, Ajay Singh coordinated extortion activities in Punjab and arranged men for the task,” a Punjab Police officer said. Pawandeep has also been identified as a close associate of Ajay Malaysia and Jass Behbal.
Both of them were wanted in the Ludhiana Police case of October last year, when the police had intercepted and arrested the trio of Kuldeep Singh, Shekhar Singh and Ajay based on “inputs” that they were looking to create terror in a crowded place in Ludhiana with the help of hand grenades. The police had allegedly received inputs that the trio had received a hand grenade from Pakistan through their sources and arrested Kuldeep with a black leather bag with a blue hand grenade.
“Kuldeep revealed during questioning that he had picked up and brought the grenade to Ludhiana on the instructions of Ajay Singh alias Ajay Malaysia,” a Punjab Police officer privy to the case details told ThePrint. Later on, Kuldeep further led the police to Parvinder Singh Chiri, who was lodged in Muktasar Sahib jail and Vijay Sing, both of whom confessed to being in touch with Jass Behbal and were part of the conspiracy related to the transportation of the grenade to Ludhiana.
“Accused Jaspreet Singh alias Jas Behbal, Pawandeep Singh, both residents of Malaysia, were nominated based on interrogation of an arrested accused who disclosed that they were companions of accused Ajay Singh alias Ajay Malaysia and they used to supply arms and ammunition along with contraband to accused Kuldeep Singh, who earlier used to smuggle drugs in Sri Ganganagar district,” the Punjab Police officer said.
(Edited by Nardeep Singh Dahiya)