More than a hundred terror-narcotics smuggler-gangster nexus cases were searched by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on May 17 in six states: Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Madhya Pradesh. The NIA is based in New Delhi.
Since early Wednesday, the anti-terror agency has been conducting these operations in close conjunction with state police units. The raids have not stopped. The NIA filed three distinct cases (RC 37, 38, and 39/2022/NIA/DLI) last year, which constitute the impetus for the current round of raids.
The agency arrested Deepak Ranga, the primary shooter in the RPG attack on the Punjab Police Intelligence Headquarters in Mohali in May 2022, on January 25 this year from Uttar Pradesh’s Gorakhpur because he was a close associate of Canadian gangster-turned-terrorist Lakhbir Singh Sandhu alias Landa and Pakistani gangster-turned-terrorist Harvinder Singh Sandhu alias Rinda.
In addition to the RPG assault in May, Deepak has been linked to many other murderous terrorist and criminal acts. He has been getting material and financial assistance from Rinda and Landa for his terrorist activities.
After it became clear that foreign terrorist organisations and terror elements were working with the heads of domestic criminal organisations in the country’s northern states to carry out targeted killings and other violent criminal acts, the NIA registered the case suo moto on September 20, 2022. Through an extensive inter-state network of gun runners, illegal arms and ammunition manufacturers and suppliers, and explosive traffickers, it had also become clear that the terror-gangster-drug smuggler network was involved in the smuggling of terrorist hardware such as arms, ammunition, explosives, IEDs, etc.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has arrested 19 leaders and members of various Organised Criminal Gangs, 2 Arms suppliers, and 1 Big Financier connected to the network under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act since three criminal cases were registered against the above terror-gangster-drug smuggler network. On January 9, 2018, Arsh Dalla, a Canadian citizen, was labelled a “individual terrorist” by the Ministry of Home Affairs.
