New Delhi: A day ahead of polling in Punjab for the 2024 Lok Sabha election, two men came on a Splendor bike to Lakhowal village in Amritsar after sunset, a time when young and old alike sit outside their homes. The pillion rider jumped off the motorcycle and fired at his target.
The victim, Deepinder Singh alias Deepu, a local worker of the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), died at a hospital shortly after, sparking a protest by villagers who also briefly boycotted the polls. Deepu was also an accused in several cases and was out on bail.
Hours after the murder, foreign-based gangster Balwinder Singh alias Dony Bal took responsibility on social media, alleging that Deepu was a member of the rival gang of Jaggu Bhagwanpuria and had given shelter to those who had killed his associate, gangster Ranbir Singh alias Rana Kandowalia, in 2021.
As the investigation proceeded, Deepu’s father revealed to the police that Deepu had been receiving threats from Dony Bal and his associate Jobanjit Singh alias Billa, who had threatened to kill him for distributing sweets for Kandowalia’s murder.
While Bal has managed to elude the Punjab Police, Billa was apprehended by the Indonesian authorities earlier this week at Jakarta airport and deported to India.
Shortly after he landed in Mumbai, he was taken into custody by the Anti Gangster Task Force (AGTF) of the Punjab Police—a designated force to investigate and trace gangsters operating in and out of the state.
According to a Punjab Police dossier, seen by ThePrint, Billa is a resident of Amritsar’s Arjan Manga village and a top operative of the Gopi Ghanshampuria and Dony Bal gang, featuring in two dozen cases of murder, attempt to murder and extortion in a short span of three years in the Majha region.
Ghanshampuria was killed in 2017 in a gang rivalry and Bal is currently the leader of the gang operating from the UK.
How Billa was caught
To trace and locate fugitive gangsters abroad, the Punjab Police have established a dedicated cell called the Overseas Fugitive Tracking and Extradition Cell (OFTEC), which has been gathering intelligence on the location and movement of gangsters abroad.
In January this year, the OFTEC—OFTEC, headed by Inspector General of Police Ashish Chaudhary and comprising officers including SP Bikramjit Brar—got intelligence that Billa was in the UAE and efforts were initiated for his arrest.
However, he slipped through using a fake passport made under a false identity based on an address in Uttar Pradesh’s Gorakhpur. Investigation revealed that the travel document was issued from Lucknow in March 2024.
Further probe by the Punjab Police found that he had fled India on the basis of the same passport in January 2025 and, from abroad, ran a racket of extortion and murder.
His name is involved in nearly a dozen cases of extortion and attempt to murder in the Majha region of the state and the Punjab government had announced a reward of Rs 5 lakh for Billa’s arrest.
Sources in the Punjab Police told ThePrint that an intelligence-led operation, codenamed Operation Nomad Hunt, was launched to intercept him and bring him back. Over the next few months, Billa moved across Angola, Georgia, Turkey and Azerbaijan, using the fake passport.
Last month, his presence in Indonesia was confirmed, and a process was initiated for his arrest and deportation but he managed to evade custody.
Officials said Billa remained in Indonesia for the entire month, and attempted to flee on 20 July when he was finally apprehended at Jakarta International Airport.
“The accused attempted to depart from Indonesia. Acting on an Interpol Red Notice, immigration authorities at Jakarta airport intercepted him. While he attempted to flee, Indonesian law enforcement immediately pursued him and succeeded in detaining him,” a police source said.
Billa’s past
An addict to opium, Billa appears to be a classic case of a Punjab-based gangster involved in the complex web of extortion, murder and the drug business.
He belongs to the Mazhabi Sikh community, recognised as Scheduled Caste by the government, and pursued his education at the village school till Class 11.
According to police records, Billa is also an addict to sublingual buprenorphine, a drug introduced in Punjab to combat addiction. Critics have for long cast doubt over the utility of buprenorphine as a de-addiction medication due to evidence of relapse in patients as well as the possibility of them getting addicted to the medicine itself.
According to the police dossier, Billa was first arrested in January 2019 by the Amritsar Rural district police for possession of 200 tablets of intoxicants. He was released on bail the following month.
Over the next few years, he faced more drug-related cases in the region but came into the spotlight with the daylight killing of gangster Jarnail Singh in Amritsar’s Sathiala village in May 2023.
According to police records, four masked men, including Billa, alighted from a Maruti Suzuki Dzire car and fired indiscriminately at Singh, who was out on bail. Singh was earlier considered a member of the Ghanshampuria gang but had developed rivalry with Bal and Ghanshampuria’s brother Manpreet Singh alias Munn.
In the recent shootout incident at Vill Sathiala, Amritsar Rural: Murder of Jarnail Singh
Anti Gangster Task Force (#AGTF) has unraveled the entire conspiracy and established the role of 10 accused/shooters of Bambiha Gang in the incident. Raids are on to arrest the accused. 1/2 pic.twitter.com/VaSHJ1I5kk
— DGP Punjab Police (@DGPPunjabPolice) May 30, 2023
The Punjab AGTF arrested one Gurveer Singh alias Guri, who allegedly revealed that the murder conspiracy was hatched by Bal, Munn and Billa after the overseas-based gangsters suspected Singh to be a police informer.
“After coming out on bail, Jarnail Singh had contested polls and become a sarpanch of the village. His former aides and gang members developed the suspicion that he had got close to the administration and become a police informer. He was killed as part of a conspiracy in which Billa played an active role, both in its planning and execution,” a Punjab Police officer privy to the cases against these gangsters told ThePrint.
Punjab Police had also arrested Billa’s brother Gurwinder on grounds of facilitating his extortion syndicate in Majha region.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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