Punjab Cops arrest 6 as Bishnoi-Kaushal gang war mirrors Dawood-Rajan feud
Punjab Police on Monday arrested six members of the Kaushal Chaudhary gang, a rival of Lawrence Bishnoi, in Amritsar. Two of the arrested were involved in the murder of international Kabaddi player Sandeep Singh Nangal Ambian in 2022. Among those arrested are key shooters Puneet Lakhanpal and Narinder Kumar, who were also linked to the 2021 murder of Sukhmeet Singh. Ambian was shot dead by unidentified assailants during a Kabaddi match in Jalandhar.
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Punjab police have identified more than two dozen suspects and claimed that the murder was linked to inter-kabaddi federation rivalry, with the aim of controlling the federation through an organized crime syndicate involving Bambiha, Kaushal, and Dagar gang members operating from abroad. The National Investigation Agency (NIA), which is investigating the nexus between pro-Khalistan elements and gangster-criminal syndicates, has stated that the rivalry between the two main gangs, led by Bishnoi and Chaudhary, mirrors the 1990s rivalry between Mumbai underworld dons Dawood Ibrahim and Chhota Rajan.
Punjab DGP Gaurav Yadav, in a statement, identified four other arrested members as Harpreet Singh, Gurbhinder Singh, Sandeep Singh, and Maninderjit Singh. Police teams have also recovered six foreign-made pistols and 40 rounds from their possession. The DGP added that the gang was involved in an indiscriminate firing incident at the Highway King Hotel in Rajasthan and had demanded an extortion of ₹5 cr in September 2024. All the