MUMBAI: The police in Mumbai arrested a former encounter specialist Pradeep Sharma, three constables and five police informers late Thursday night on the charge of faking an encounter on Nov. 11, 2006 in which alleged gangster Ram Narayan Gupta, alias Lakhan Bhaiya, was shot dead near Nana Nani park in suburban Versova by Sharma and his men. Police claimed the deceased was a member of underworld don Chotta Rajan’s gang.
Sharma and other accused were produced Friday before a judge at suburban Andheri court, which remanded them to police custody until the end of this month.
Gupta’s wife had petitioned the Mumbai police commissioner to inquire into the circumstances of her husband’s disappearance. She said her husband was picked up by a police team from their house on Nov. 10 and she feared he was killed in a fake encounter.
Autopsy reports revealed that Gupta, who had been called all the way from Vashi in Navi Mumbai to Versova, had indeed been shot from a point-blank range. Police said Gupta was killed in an encounter by Sharma and his team the following day.
Adit Narayan Gupta, the brother of the deceased and a lawyer, filed a petition in the Bombay High Court, alleging that his brother was shot in a staged killing by Sharma and his team in league with some builders and police informers. Fourteen people were made accused in the petition.
After finding some truth in the allegations, a bench of the Bombay High Court asked the police commissioner to set up a special investigation team to probe the matter. The team found after an investigation that Sharma and the 13 others named in the petition had carried out a fake encounter. Nine of them were arrested Thursday night and the remainder would be arrested soon, said a senior police officer.
Sharma, who was involved in 100 encounters with criminals, received several medals and awards. He was involved in the disappearance of Ghatkopar bomb blast accused Khawaja Yunus in 2002.
One of the other accused, constable Rajendra Tiwari, too was charged earlier in the Khawaja Yunus case.
