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Mumbai:
A Mumbai court Friday remanded former high-profile police
‘encounter’ specialist Pradeep Sharma and five others in police
custody till Jan 14 after they were arrested for a killing in a fake
shootout.
Sharma and three others, including two constables, were nabbed late
Thursday night. Two more people were held Friday.
Those arrested include police constables Tanaji Desai and Ratnakar
Kamble, and Sharma’s informers Shailendra Pandey, Akhilesh and
Hitesh. They were arrested by the city police and a Special
Investigation Team (SIT) following a probe ordered by the Bombay
High Court into the killing of alleged gangster Ramnarain Gupta.
Ramnarain alias Lakhan Gupta was shot dead Nov 11, 2006, by D.N.
Nagar police station chief Pradeep Suryawanshi.
Ramprasad Gupta, Ramnarain’s elder brother, cried foul and alleged
that it was a staged shootout. He later moved the Bombay High Court
for an investigation into the killing.
Sharma and the five others were presented before an Andheri
magistrate court here Friday evening.
Pleading for police custody of Sharma and the other arrested, the
police prosecutor urged the court that since the matter is over
three years old and since even a magistrate had been threatened in
the case, the investigators needed them for further probe into the
killing.
The
high court had ordered the inquiry to be conducted by Andheri
magistrate R.A. Shaikh, whose report stated that Ramnarain Gupta was
killed in a staged shootout.
Later, the magistrate brought to the notice of the high court that
even she had been threatened by Suryawanshi through some advocates.
Upon receiving the report, the high court ordered a Special
Investigating Team (SIT) be set up to probe the case in depth.
Chief Minister Ashok Chavan Friday said that “officers like (Pradeep)
Sharma were a blot on the entire police force”.
Reacting to the arrests, Chavan said the government would take
necessary steps to ensure the police force is not demoralised by
such officers.
Following this case and several other allegations of Sharma’s
alleged links with the underworld, his acting as the mafia henchman
in uniform and his reported over Rs.3 billion unaccounted wealth, he
was suspended from service and in 2008 the state government
dismissed him from service.
Sharma challenged the government action before the Maharashtra
Administrative Tribunal, which ordered his reinstatement, against
which the state government has appealed before the Bombay High
Court.
Now,
the police and SIT are also preparing to nab Suryawanshi for the
case.
During his long career with the Mumbai Police, the dare-devil Sharma
was credited with killing over 100 notorious criminals, mafia dons,
and Indian and Pakistani terrorists, including some belonging to the
Lashkar-e-Taiba.
Expressing satisfaction over the developments, Ramprasad Gupta told
mediapersons that justice was finally being done in the case after
many years of his efforts.
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