A wanted criminal, carrying a bounty of ₹2.5 lakh on his head, was gunned down in an alleged encounter with a joint team of the Uttar Pradesh and Haryana police in Noida on Monday.
This takes the number of people killed in U.P. encounters after the Yogi Adityanath government came to power to 50. The suspect, identified as Balraj Bhati, was allegedly a sharpshooter of the notorious Sundar Bhati gang.
Two head constables of the Haryana Special Task Force, Raj Kumar and Bhupendra, were injured in the shootout, the police said.
A seven-year-old child and a 30-year-old man were among the three civilians injured in the shooting by the suspects, the Gurugram police said.
A 9 mm carbine and a 9 mm pistol were recovered from Bhati, the U.P. DGP office said.
Bhati was taken to a hospital where he was declared dead. A native of Shikarpur in Bulandshahr district, Bhati had 19 criminal cases against him in Haryana, Ghaziabad and Delhi. These included eight murder cases, while others related to extortion and under the Arms Act and Gangsters Act.
U.P. STF Inspector General Amitabh Yash said the encounter went on for about 15 minutes. Bhati was the prime target of three States and was “successfully tracked and intercepted” on a tip-off by an informant, Mr. Yash said.
Bhati’s car was intercepted and cornered at a crossing in Sector 47 Noida while he was allegedly on an extortion attempt. According to the police, when they asked Bhati to surrender, his gang opened fire at their teams.
“When his vehicle was intercepted, he tried to escape from the spot and fired at the police teams. The teams chased his vehicle and when he reached Sector 49, his car tyres burst in the exchange of fire,” the police said.
Bhati and his two aides tried to flee from the scene while firing at the police teams, the police added.
“Our teams chased them. Bhati kept firing non-stop and he then climbed a rooftop and started firing from there, injuring three civilians and two head constables,” the Gurugram police said.
Mr. Yash said Bhati was an accused in several murder cases and contract killings. In 2012, Bhati and his aide Jitendra had pumped 140 bullets into one Pappu Kataar and his wife in Bhati's native village of Dalla Dusri over political rivalry concerning the post of a headman.
Bhati did not stop there and in February 2014, Gulab Singh, the witness of the couple's murder, was also killed by Bhati and Jitendra despite being under police protection, Mr. Yash said.
A man named Vipin, who was fighting the legal battle in both cases, was also murdered in April 2014 in Bulandshahr.
