The Hindu : New Delhi News : Criminals held after encounter

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Sep 01, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

Criminals held after encounter

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, AUG. 31. Four alleged criminals wanted by the Haryana police were arrested after a brief encounter with a joint team of the Special Staff and the Najafgarh police this past Monday. Two country-made pistols, a stolen car, a motorcycle and other stolen articles were recovered from their possession.

On August 24, Amit Tyagi, who works as chief medical officer at the Police Training College, was going in his Maruti Alto to pick up his wife from a hospital when three young men on a motorcycle intercepted him on Mitraon-Surakhpur Road and two of them forced their way into the vehicle. They drove the vehicle towards Kair village where they forced Dr. Tyagi and his two children to get down from the vehicle and sped away. The third culprit fled on a motorcycle.

Investigations indicated that one Ashok Pradhan, a resident of Bahadurgarh, could be involved in the case. He was involved in over 10 cases of murder, kidnapping, robbery and carjacking in Haryana. He had jumped bail in a murder case and has been absconding since. The police tried to trace his accomplice, Pawan, but found him missing from his Delhi and Haryana residences.

During further probe, the police received a tip-off that Ashok along with his accomplices would come to Najafgarh in the stolen Alto bearing a fake registration number. Subsequently, a team comprising Inspectors Mohammad Iqbal, H.S. Meena, Sub-Inspector Rajkumar, Assistant Sub-Inspector Charan Singh and others set up a barricade on the road, forcing the vehicle to stop. The three occupants immediately alighted from the car and fired two rounds at the police, upon which they returned the fire asking the suspects to surrender.

The culprits tried to flee but were overpowered. They were identified as Ashok Pradhan, Pawan and Sanjeet Pal. At their instance, the police arrested their accomplice, Tapan Yadav. The police also recovered Dr. Tyagi's mobile phone and the motorcycle the accused had used to rob him of his vehicle.

According to the Deputy Commissioner of Police (South-West Delhi), Deependra Pathak, Pawan is involved in at least six heinous cases registered in Haryana and Delhi and was not arrested so far. A school dropout, Sanjeet Pal is a first timer, who was lured into the world of crime by the gang leader, Ashok.

Robbed of car

A 35-year-old man was robbed of his car at gun-point by two unidentified persons at Dwarka in South-West Delhi on Monday night.

According to the police, Dev Raj, a property dealer living in Matiala village of West Delhi, was returning home in his Santro car after closing his office in Sector-23 Dwarka late last night, when his car had a flat tyre.

Just when he was about to resume his journey after changing the tyre, two young men came on foot and one of them forced him to come out of the car at gun-point.

When he came out, the duo pushed him down and sped away in the vehicle.

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