The Hindu : Terror of Capital ends reign in Punjab

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Mar 11, 2003

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Terror of Capital ends reign in Punjab

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI MARCH 10. Dreaded gangster, Sandeep Johar alias Sandeep Bhuri -- wanted in cases of murder, attempt to murder, kidnapping for extortion and controlling tender mafia in Delhi -- shot himself dead after being surrounded by a team of Punjab police at Ludhiana late last night. A huge cache of weapons and live cartridges were recovered from the car in which he was travelling.

According to the information reaching here, the Punjab police had information that Sandeep and his wife Jayanti were living on rent in Civil Lines area of Ludhiana and were suspected to be involved in some criminal activities.

Sandeep's car was intercepted by Ludhiana police in the jurisdiction of Shanewal police station late last night. Initially, he tried to escape by opening fire at the police team in which a police constable was injured. However, before the police could return the fire, he shot himself dead.

The search of Sandeep's car led to the recovery of at least 25 pistols of Chinese make. A cache of 250 live cartridges was also recovered.

Earlier, Sandeep had managed to get himself transferred to a Haryana jail at the fag end of November last. Police here said that he was lodged in Tihar Jail under the National Security Act in October.

However, he managed to get a case of extortion registered against him at Sonepat in Haryana. By the end of November, he was transferred to Sonepat jail in relation to the case. There, he managed to procure bail and after that there was no trace of him.

However, on January 4, an encounter with North-West Delhi police at Keshavpuram raised the suspicion that Sandeep was operating in Delhi after being bailed out.

The Additional Station House Officer of Keshavpuram police station was shot at and one person, identified as Kalyan Khari, was arrested in dramatic chase and encounter on January 4. It was reported that five persons were present in the vehicle. Sandeep was believed to be one of them. However, there was no conclusive evidence.

Recovery of monkey caps and some clothes from the Tata Indica, which had a fake registration number printed on paper pasted on it, also raised the suspicion that they were planning to commit a heinous crime.

Sandeep entered the world of crime at the age of 20 about 10 years ago. He was lodged in Tihar jail in relation to some crime when he came in contact with Sanjay Pehalwan and organised his gang comprising 20-odd men. Three members of this gang, Karambir, Satish and Rakesh, were earlier arrested by the Crime Branch on charges of trying to extort protection money from businessmen.

According to the police, Sandeep was trying to regroup the gang members. However, the Delhi police did not had concrete information about his whereabouts.

Normally, Sandeep, son of a meter-reader with the erstwhile DVB, used to stay with his parents at Vikaspuri, though he also owned a house in Rohini. It was possible that he shifted to Punjab to evade the police pressure in the Capital but kept himself involved in criminal activities in Ludhiana.

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