Two of 17 Sikhs arrested in California are wanted in Indian murder cases

Two of the 17 Sikhs arrested in California over the weekend have been accused of committing murder in multiple cases in India, Police said on Wednesday (19).

The authorities are searching for two others in connection with other criminal cases.

The California Attorney General's spokesperson identified the two Sikhs facing murder charges in India as Pavittar Singh and Husandeep Singh, but did not reveal their nationality.

It is believed that they are still Indian citizens and have a pending asylum application. The law enforcement agencies in northern California, in and around Yuba City, which has a large Sikh community, carried out a series of raids that prevented a major mass casualty.

The two rival gangs are called ‘Minta Group’ and the ‘AK47 group' with at least 30 members.

To the surprise of even the law enforcement agencies, the group members were found to have several dangerous firearms upon arrest.

“During the investigation, 41 firearms were seized. Those firearms included AR15, AK-47s, handguns, and at least one machinegun,” Jennifer Dupre, the district Attorney of Sutter County said.

Two of those arrested from San Joaquin County – Dharmvir Singh alias Minta and Jobanjit Singh – were stopped on their way to Manteca, where they were allegedly going to commit a homicide, with pistols, large capacity magazines, and fully automatic weapons on them.

Dupre said law enforcement was able to stop two vehicles before they could arrive at a Sikh parade in Sacramento over the weekend.

“While a shooting did occur at the temple, we were able to stop a mass casualty incident. If those weapons had gotten into the parade, it could have been a blood bath,” Dupre said.

California’s Attorney General Rob Bonta said during the investigation, they prevented at least two additional shootings from happening. “Because of this operation future gun violence, future crime, future harm has been prevented,” he said. The multi-agency, multi-county investigation was called “Operation Broken Sword.”

“During the 2018 Sikh Parade in Yuba City, there was an attack, a sword attack and the victim was being cut with swords, and he was also being beaten. And one of the swords broke due to the violence of that meeting. So that became the name of this operation, Operation Broken Sword,” Dupre said, adding, they also located some narcotics, and also child porn material, from the arrests.

The shooting at a gurdwara in Sacramento last month accelerated the process of investigations.

“Well, the fact that the parade was going to occur ramped up the investigation. Our goal was to try to keep that violence-free. It wasn’t completely violence-free, but as I stated, we 100 per cent believe we did prevent a mass casualty incident with our actions and the phenomenal work of law enforcement,” she said.

(PTI)