Jugnu Walia

Some Lesser Known Facts About Jugnu Walia

• Jugnu Walia is a notorious Indian gangster and a Samajwadi Party worker known for his close relations with the jailed politician Mukhtar Ansari. He made the headlines after the Anti-Gangster Task Force of the Punjab Police took him into custody in May 2023. He was wanted in Uttar Pradesh in 23 extortion and murder-related cases.

• Jugnu was born into a Sikh family in Uttar Pradesh and was raised in Lucknow.

  

• After completing his formal education, he joined the Samajwadi Party and worked in the party as a worker.

• His influence as a gangster in Uttar Pradesh increased after he started working with Mukhtar Ansari. He later got involved in Mukhtar’s underground businesses such as extortion and target killings. With Mukhtar, Jugnu started lending money to people on interest and also entered the real estate business.

  

• Jugnu was booked by the cops in Uttar Pradesh after the killing of Swaroop Singh, a businessman in UP, in 2005.

• He was booked by the UP police for the attempted murder of Devendra Singh Arora in March 2011.

• Later, a prominent tea businessman from Lucknow lodged an FIR against Jugnu after getting threatened by him for not paying back the money he had taken from Jugnu.

• In January 2019, Jugnu was charged with the murder of Amanpreet Singh, a UP-based cloth merchant. However, the Allahabad High Court ordered the police to release him from the jail on parole.

• While Jugnu was out on bail, he killed a restaurant owner named Amanpreet Singh, aka Romi, in October 2021. As per the sources, Amanpreet was shot dead in the Manak Nagar area of ​​Alambagh, Lucknow, after he failed to pay extortion money to Jugnu. Following the murder of Amanpreet, the police sent numerous warrants asking Jugnu to surrender to the court. Upon failing to surrender in front of the court, the police declared him an absconder in February 2022 and seized his properties, worth crores of rupees, in March 2022. The law enforcement authorities in UP also placed a prize of Rs. 1 lac on his head. While talking about the ordeal, in an interview, a senior police officer said,
  

  Walia was declared an absconder on February 1. However, he did not surrender. He is unlikely to surrender before the court and his act is in violation of the provisions of Section 82 of the CrPC (being declared an absconder). An FIR under the charges of non-attendance in obedience to an order from a public servant was also lodged against him.”

• Jugnu was captured in Mohali, Punjab, by the Anti-Gangster Task Force on 6 May 2023 evening. The police, while raiding the house where he was hiding, found a .32 calibre pistol, six rounds of ammunition, a Skoda car, two walkie-talkie sets, and foreign currency worth lakhs of rupees. Thereafter, the Punjab Police registered a case against Jugnu under Sections 25 (7,8) of the Arms Act and Section 120B of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The DGP of Punjab Police talked about the capturing of Jugnu in a press conference and said,
  

  The accused Jugnu Walia, who is a history-sheeter and facing a number of criminal cases pertaining to murder, attempt to murder, and extortion was “most-wanted” by Uttar Pradesh (UP) police in a number of criminal cases and had a reward of ₹1 lakh on his arrest by the UP government.”

  

  Thereafter, the UP Police’s Special Task Force (STF) went to Punjab to jointly question Jugnu. The STF also asked the Punjab Police to share the probe reports of Jugnu with them.

• Jugnu occasionally drinks liquor.