By IANS,
New Delhi : The leader and a member of the notorious “bikers’ gang”, believed to be responsible for at least four murders and a spate of armed robberies in and around the capital, were shot dead by the Delhi Police Monday morning.
The police said gang leader Om Prakash alias Bunty and his accomplice Rajesh were killed at around 5.30 a.m. in a gun battle near the Badarpur border between south Delhi and the satellite town of Faridabad in Haryana. Three policemen were injured in the incident, they added.
A police team rushed to Badarpur after receiving information that Bunty was hiding in a building in the locality.
“On seeing the police, they locked themselves in and started firing from inside. The two were shot dead in retaliatory firing,” a police officer said.
Three imported pistols, four country-made pistols, live cartridges and two knives were recovered from the spot, he added.
The bikers’ gang – so called due to their habit of speeding in and out of crime scenes on motorcycles – had become notorious due to their predilection to start shooting.
Bunty, who was wanted in 22 cases of murder and robbery, had formed the gang during his stay in jail last year.
An air of silence hung around Bunty’s home in Sangam Vihar in south Delhi. According to neighbours, Bunty didn’t stay there, but visited his family once in a few months.
The door to his house was shut and relatives refused to talk to anyone. His family had reportedly disowned him more than a year ago.
Bunty and Rajesh had been on the run after three gang members were arrested July 31. Each had a reward of Rs.50,000 on his head, the police said.
One gang member, Nasir alias Zakir, 27, was arrested from the same Badarpur area when he went to meet the wife of another gang member, Israil alias Ajay Bidhuri, along with his two accomplices Mushtaq Ahmed, 24, and Rakesh, 28. Nasir was involved in at least 18 cases of murder, robbery, kidnapping and snatching, the police said.
At that time, Deputy Commissioner of Police (South Delhi) H.G.S. Dhaliwal said robbery was the main motive behind all the incidents.
“Bikes were just used as tools to rob the people. They only robbed Pulsar motorcycles because of its speed and high performance. They were not selling or disposing them off.
“If one bike broke down they would steal another. The reason behind killing the owners of these motorbikes was to avoid identification and evade arrest. They did not even hesitate to kill people for amounts as meagre as Rs.2,500.
The biker gang first made news July 5 when its members gunned down property dealer Sonu, 25, outside his Sangam Vihar residence. That day, they shot at a man and robbed his Pulsar bike in the same area.
They robbed the owner of a TV showroom in the Kalkaji area of south Delhi and the customers during daylight the next day. The same day they robbed another motorbike from Defence Colony area of south Delhi at gunpoint.
On July 11, the gang killed two friends – Ashneet Singh, 24, and Harjeet Singh, 26 – in Amar Colony near Lajpat Nagar, again in south Delhi. Barely a few minutes later, they shot dead Sanjeev Suri, 30, near the Andrews Ganj crossing when one of the motorcycles they had stolen ran out of fuel.
The very next day the gang shot Naresh and Pawan, both in their 30s, in south Delhi’s Dakshinpuri area. On July 21, they robbed a motorcycle from Okhla area.
After carrying out a series of robberies and killing people in south Delhi, the gang robbed and beat up a motorcycle rider in Mayur Vihar area of east Delhi. They also robbed in two shops in east Delhi.
“Between June 28 and July 17, the gang committed crimes in Delhi and fled to a village, Garhi Shhedra in Noida (another satellite town of Delhi, in Uttar Pradesh), and stayed there. Their photographs were released to the public at the time. They committed most of the crimes during that period,” Dhaliwal had said.