LUCKNOW: An unidentified gunman shot dead Mohammad Sharif, the accused in the 2008 CRPF camp attack, in Rampur on Tuesday.
As per local sources, the assailant shot Sharif 16 times. He was rushed to a hospital after the attack but succumbed to his injuries.
Rampur police sources said that he had received a gunshot wound to his head during the attack. The cops have initiated a manhunt for the shooter.
It may be recalled that seven CRPF personnel and a rickshaw puller were killed in a pre-dawn terror attack, plotted by Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), on the CRPF Group Centre in Rampur on the night of December 31, 2007-January 1, 2008.
Sharif, who belonged to Badanpuri-Khajuria village in Rampur, was lodged in Bareilly Central Jail and released in November last year. Arrested in the case in the aftermath of the attack, Sharif was convicted along with five others, including two Pakistani nationals, in the case on charges of murder, terrorism and conspiracy in 2019.
Four, including Sharif, were subsequently sentenced to death after they were found to be directly involved in the attack.
In October 2025, the Allahabad High Court overturned the death sentences but upheld their conviction under the Arms Act for possessing prohibited weapons, sentencing them to ten years’ rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs 1 lakh each.
The High Court had noted procedural lapses by the police, such as the failure to conduct a Test Identification Parade (TIP), and also found lapses in the handling of physical evidence, observing that firearms, cartridges and grenades allegedly recovered from the scene were not securely preserved or properly traced through the chain of custody. Key witnesses who should have verified the storage and transfer of evidence were not examined.
