Gangster wanted in two murder cases nabbed after exchange of fire in Delhi
Darpan News Desk IANS, 23 Jun, 2023 04:09 PM
New Delhi, June 23 (IANS) Delhi Police's Special Cell has arrested a member of the infamous Hashim Baba gang, who was wanted in two murder cases, after an overnight encounter in Delhi's Ghazipur area, the police said on Friday.
The accused has been identified as Mohd Zahid, a native of Moradabad in Uttar Pradesh.
Special Commissioner of Police (Special Cell), H.G.S. Dhaliwal, said that in the intervening night of June 22-23, an information was received that Zahid would come to the Paper Market in Ghazipur to meet his associate in order to commit some heinous crime.
"Acting upon the tip-off, a trap was laid near the Shiv Mandir behind Paper Market. At around 1:30 a.m., Zahid was spotted there on an Apache motorcycle," Dhaliwal said.
The police team surrounded Zahid and asked him to surrender. However, finding himself surrounded by the police, the accused whipped out a pistol and opened fire at the raiding party. The police retaliated in self-defence, resulting in gunshot injury on the left foot of Zahid, the Special CP said.
Zahid was immediately shifted to the Lal Bahadur Shastri Hospital for treatment.
As per police records, at an early age, Zahid got influenced by a criminal from his village named Samarpal and started committing crime with him.
"Later, he joined the Vijay Lamba gang. Before his arrest, he was a key member of the dreaded Hashim Baba gang. On May 28, 2020, the accused along with Hashim, Aman, Guddu and Sachin had killed a freelance reporter named Haider in the Bhajanpura area," the officer said.
On May 10 this year, Zahid along with his associate Sageer, had robbed Rs 55 lakh from an employee of Ridha Metal Company at gunpoint in the Sadar Bazar area.
Two Covid-19-related deaths have also been reported in the same time span. The positivity rate of the city has risen to 13.79 per cent. The number of active cases stands at 806 out of which 452 patients are being treated in home isolation.
Lakhimpur Kheri Chief Medical Officer (CMO), Santosh Gupta, said that one staff member was also found Covid-positive during a contact tracing exercise on Sunday after which the entire campus has been turned into a quarantine centre by the Health department. This is the highest number of new Covid cases reported in a district in a day this year.
During thorough search of the area on Monday, BSF troops recovered six packets, containing 6.27 kg heroin, inside a bag lying in the fields near the village. A motorcycle was also found nearby.
According to the police, a 67-year-old man had filed a complaint with the cyber police station in Shahdara district wherein he alleged that on March 18, he had received a WhatsApp video call from an unknown number in which a girl was performing some obscene act.
The accused -- 19-year-old Rohit Kumar and 26-year-old Kamal -- are residents of Sitapur. During interrogation, Rohit told police that the truck driver Harpinder, 60, originally from Faridkot district, tried to harass him sexually under the influence of alcohol.
XBB 1.16 was first found in January. However, while only two samples were found then, the number rose to 138 in February, and in March till date total 204 samples of this variant have been found through genome sequencing. The highest number of cases of this variant have been found in Maharashtra at 105, followed by Telangana 93, Karnataka 57 and Gujarat 54 as per the data.
