By IANS,
New Delhi : The leader of the notorious bikers’ gang Om Prakash alias Bunty, who was shot dead by police Monday morning along with an accomplice, started as a pick pocket at the age of 17 and wanted to be an extortionist, police said.
The five-member gang had unleashed terror in the capital by robbing more than a dozen people and shooting dead at least four in the last four months.
Bunty and his associate Rajesh were killed in a gun battle with police Monday morning at Badarpur.
“The gang was desperate and trying to trigger terror with killings and robberies so that they could start an extortion racket and collect money from businessmen,” Delhi Police Commissioner Y.S. Dadwal said at a crowded press conference.
“Four cops were injured in the gun battle and were taken to hospital. Their condition is normal,” Dadwal said.
Bunty had outsmarted police several times and escaped before they could reach his hideout.
“Continuous raids were conducted by the police in and around Delhi to nab Bunty. He shifted his hideout from Noida to Karnal and Kurukshetra in Haryana and escaped police at least twice in the last few days,” Dadwal said.
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.
“Their modus operandi was to shoot the person first and then rob him so that the victim can’t resist them,” Dadwal said.
Bunty was in town with the motive to kill two businessmen who had resisted robbery by the gang in July.
“He feared that the traders could become a witness in the case and thus wanted to kill them,” Dadwal said.
Police refused to confirm that the godown where Bunty was killed belongs to D.K. Mittal, a prime suspect in the murder of businessmen Arun Gupta earlier this year.
The police recovered three foreign pistols, four country made pistols and 18 live cartridges from the spot.
“Besides, a phone diary having contact numbers in specific alphabetical codes was recovered. We are investigating it,” Dadwal said.
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.
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.
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.
“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,” Dadwal said.