Chandigarh: Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) of Tarn Taran district Gurmeet Singh Chauhan was transferred on administrative grounds Thursday, a day after AAP MLA Manjinder Singh Lalpura alleged that his brother-in-law was arrested by the police officer’s team in a false case of illegal mining.
Chauhan, a 2011 batch IPS officer, is known across the rank and file as Punjab’s “gangbuster” policeman for his contribution to containing organised crime in the state. He was also holding the additional charge of Assistant Inspector General (AIG) of the anti-gangster task force in the border range.
When Chauhan vacated his office at Tarn Taran Friday, police personnel showered flower petals on his jeep.
A day earlier, when Chauhan was stripped of his position as Tarn Taran SSP, five others in his team were also suspended after the arrest of Khadoor Sahib MLA Lalpura’s brother-in-law, Nishan Singh.
For Chauhan, who won the President’s medal in 2020, this was the first controversy he faced in almost 30 years of his police career.
While Chauhan has not been given any other field posting and was asked to be attached to the DGP’s office with immediate effect, whether he continues to hold the post of AIG of the anti-gangster task force in the sensitive border range of Punjab, is unclear.
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MLA’s allegations
The transfer of Chauhan came within a day of the AAP MLA Lalpura lashing out at the SSP through a Facebook post for arresting his brother-in-law Nishan Singh, in what he claimed to be a false case of illegal mining.
In multiple press interviews in the past few days, Lalpura alleged that Chauhan had become inimical towards him because he had flagged rampant corruption in the Tarn Taran police force.
The MLA also claimed, while speaking to media persons, that Chauhan directed a police team to arrest his brother-in-law on false charges of illegal mining, and the police team then misbehaved with his brother-in-law while he was in police custody.
The MLA further alleged that Chauhan was sending threatening messages to him through various policemen and even tried to force his brother-in-law to speak against him.
In his Facebook post Wednesday, the MLA wrote that he was giving up his security men and was ready to face Chauhan in a one-on-one duel.
Giving his version of the events, Chauhan told media persons Wednesday that his team had got information that a group of people were engaged in illegal mining in Bhail village in the night.
“Our teams reached the spot where they found 10-15 people with tippers and other vehicles doing illegal mining. While most of the men managed to run away, Nishan Singh and nine others were caught during the police chase that ensued. It was only after the arrests were made, that we came to know that he is the brother-in-law of the AAP MLA,” Chauhan told media persons.
The SSP denied allegations of any misbehaviour on the part of his team or having issued any direct or indirect threats to the MLA. He offered himself for scrutiny of any kind by the government in the matter.
Shot to prominence
A law graduate from Panjab University, Chandigarh, Chauhan joined the state police service as a DSP in 1994 and was inducted into the IPS in 2011.
He first came into the limelight in 2005 when he was posted in Patiala and he cracked the sensational murder case of an additional sessions judge Vijay Kumar.
Following the investigation conducted by Chauhan, a woman doctor friend of the judge was arrested within days of the murder, and in 2012, she was convicted of the crime.
Chauhan went on to head five districts besides serving briefly as a volunteer in the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Kosovo.
In 2017, when the Punjab Police formed a special wing — the Organised Crime Control Unit (OCCU) — to handle the growing gangsterism in the state, Chauhan was its founder and a key member. He was instrumental in categorising hundreds of gangsters operating in the state based on their crimes, their groupings and networks.
The OCCU was first tasked with cracking the sensational Nabha jailbreak case of 2016 in which two Sikh separatists and four gangsters had escaped.
A group of gangsters dressed as policemen had opened fire at the security guards protecting the high-security jail to help the six flee.
Among those who had escaped was Punjab’s dreaded gangster Harjinder Singh alias Vicky Gounder, wanted in almost a dozen cases of grave crimes, including murders, kidnapping and extortion.
In 2018, Chauhan and his team shot dead Gounder and his associate Prema Lahoria in a midnight encounter in a Rajasthan village where the two were hiding in the house of an associate.
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Operation ‘Jack Hunt’
In June 2021, Chauhan’s operation “Jack Hunt”, which was launched in 2017 to nab Punjab’s most wanted gangster Jaipal Bhullar, bore fruit.
A master of disguise, Bhullar son of a Punjab cop had been evading the police for almost two decades. In a joint operation of OCCU and West Bengal Police, Bhullar was killed in an encounter along with an associate in Kolkata.
In the years that followed, OCCU teams mopped up most of the categorised gangsters. Addressing a press conference in April last year, then DGP of Punjab V.K. Bhawra said that a of total 545 gangsters had been identified category-wise (A, B and C since the creation of OCCU) of which 515 have been arrested.
When the Aam Aadmi Party government took over in March last year, OCCU was rechristened as the Anti-Gangster Task Force (AGTF) and Chauhan continued to be on the top of things in AGTF focusing on securing the extradition of gangsters who had fled Punjab.
These included Satinderjit Singh alias Goldy Brar of the Lawrence Bishnoi gang and Lakhbir Singh alias Landa. Both are now among those wanted by the National Investigative Agency (NIA) and the Punjab Police.
His concerted efforts also helped central intelligence agencies to extradite gangster Sachin Bishnoi from Azerbaijan in August this year.
Tarn Taran posting and RPG attack
In December last year, Chauhan was posted as SSP Tarn Taran — a crucial border district that had once remained the hotbed of the secessionist movement in the 1980s.
Tarn Taran also reportedly holds the dubious reputation of having a huge drug problem largely due to its border with Pakistan, apart from being a hotbed of crime.
Chauhan, who has been on the gangsters’ hit list for long, was “welcomed” in Tarn Taran with an RPG attack on the Sarhali police station in the district, which was later found to be carried out on orders of Canada-based Lakhbir Singh.
Singh was reported to have masterminded a similar attack on the intelligence headquarters in Mohali last year.
Chauhan unearthed the entire conspiracy behind the RPG attack, arresting several persons involved in executing the crime.
What, however, stood out during the investigation was Chauhan’s decision to let go of eight juveniles who had unwittingly been used by Singh’s men to help them execute the crime.
These boys, all in their early teens, were handed over to their parents after their detention with the warning to focus on their studies and build a career based on education rather than crime.
In an interview with media persons later, Chauhan said, “The idea behind this humanitarian act, rarely seen in such cases, was to ensure that the young juveniles do not turn into hardened criminals.”
Chauhan also remained at the forefront of the statewide operation to nab Sikh extremist Amritpal Singh and his supporters in March this year.
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His recent operations
As head of the police force in Tarn Taran, Chauhan’s teams dealt with robbers and drug smugglers with a heavy hand.
A member of a car-snatching group was killed in an encounter by the Tarn Taran police in July, and last month, Chauhan’s team killed an alleged drug smuggler following an encounter between the police and the smuggler near Kairon village in Tarn Taran.
In the past month alone, Chauhan’s team reportedly recovered almost Rs 2 crore of alleged drug money in cash during arrests of drug smugglers and hawala operators.
The Tarn Taran police also recovered multiple drones coming in from Pakistan.
Just last month Chauhan gave details at a press conference of a dangerous trend emerging of drones coming in with payloads not just at night, but also during the day delivering payloads in multiples of half kg each and making more than one visit in the same day.
Tarn Taran police had that day also released footage from the recovered drone delivering the payload over an open field.
Days before he was transferred Thursday, Chauhan and his team were busy cracking a daylight bank dacoity bid in village Dhotian in which five of the accused were arrested Saturday.
(Edited by Richa Mishra)
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