Lucknow: After having fleeing from police custody earlier this month, Rohit Saandu, a notorious criminal of western UP carrying a reward of Rs 1 lakh on his head, succumbed to police bullets during an encounter with Muzaffarnagar police early Tuesday morning.
Police sources said that a 9 mm pistol, a .32 bore country made pistol, live and used cartridges and motorcycle without registration number were also recovered from the possession of the deceased.
Prashant Kumar, Addl. DGP (Meerut Zone), himself supervised the operation in Muzaffarnagar. He was accompanied by SSP Abhishek Yadav and SP (City) Satpal Antil. "At around 4:30 in the morning, one of our sub-inspectors sent an alert on wireless about four suspects on two motorcycles going towards Mansoorpur from Bhopa area in Muzaffarnagar district. Soon reinforcement was sent to chase them. Seeing the cops, the two criminals opened fire and in retaliatory fire, two suspects were injured who later succumbed," said Kumar while interacting with the media.
While Saandu, 26, was carrying reward of Rs 1 lakh, his aide Rakesh Yadav had a bounty of Rs 50,000. Saandu, who was wanted in several cases of murder, loot, abduction and extortion, had escaped from police custody on July 2. Earlier, he was arrested in 2016 and was shifted to Faizabad jail in 2017 as he was found continuing his criminal activities from Muzaffarnagar jail.
From Faizabad, Saandu was shifted to Mirzapur jail in eastern UP after the gruesome killing of mafia don Munna Bajrangi by one of the inmates and gangster Sunil Rathi on Baghpat jail premises on July 9, 2018.
Police sources also said that Saandu's aide Yadav who was also killed in the encounter, hailed from Ayodhya and had over a dozen cases registered against him at various police stations from Ayodhya to Muzaffarnagar.
The cops eliminated Saandu after he got his escape orchestrated with the help of another gang head by Bhupendra Baafar and five of his henchmen who had opened fire at the police team escorting Saandu back to Mirzapur jail after court hearing in Muzaffarnagar on July 2, this year.
A UP police sub-inspector Durg Vijay Singh had sustained bullet shots during the shootout and he later succumbed in a Delhi hospital.