Encounter specialist Pradeep Sharma — whose much-discussed career had nosedived five years ago after the Maharashtra Government dismissed him from service for his alleged links with the underworld — got a new lease of life on Friday, as a city court acquitted him in the fake encounter case of gangster Ramnarayan Gupta alias lakhan Bhaiyya.

However, the court convicts another senior cop and accused Pradeep Suryawanshi who had led the encounter team, and 19 others, were found guilty and convicted in the case by Sessions Judge VD Jadhwar.

The Sessions court will pronounce the quantum of sentence on the convicted persons, including Suryawanshi, on July 8. lakhan Bhaiyya, a member of Chhota Rajan gang, was shot dead in an encounter near Nana Nani Park at Versova in north-west Mumbai, on November 11, 2006.

The police had, after the encounter, claimed that acting on a tip-off that lakhan Bhaiyya, a close of Rajan’s lieutenant DK Rao, would come to meet a “contact” at Nana-Nani Park in Versova, they laid a trap for him. lakhan Bhaiyya, against whom 19 cases-including murder, dacoity and extortion — had been registered, had not only refused to surrender, but had also fired at the police party, prompting the encounter specialists to eliminate him in the purported encounter.   

However, the slain gangster’s family members subsequently alleged that lakhan was picked up by a police team, led by Inspector Pradeep Suryawanshi, from his Navi Mumbai residence, and killed in a “fake” encounter.  

The arrest of Sharma and 21 others on January 8, 2010 had followed investigations by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) set up on the directives of the Bombay High Court, which heard deceased lakhan Bhaiyya’s brother Ramprasad Gupta’s petition. Ramprasad — who moved the High Court shortly after his brother death — had alleged that his lakhan Bhaiyya had been killed in a “staged” encounter.      

Expressing its displeasure over the efforts by the police to “suppress” facts in the case, a division bench of the High Court — comprising Justice BH Marlapalle and Justice Roshan Dalvi — had in August 2008 had ordered the city police to register an FIR in the case and later in October 2009, directed Deputy Commissioner of Police KM Prasanna to set up an SIT to investigate the case properly. 

Sharma was dismissed from service on August 31, 2008 under the Article 311 of the Constitution, for his alleged links with the underworld. However, on May 7, 2009, the Maharashtra Administrative Tribunal (MAT) ordered Sharma’s reinstatement, observing that his dismissal was “unsustainable under the law”. The Maharashtra Government subsequently challenged the MAT’s ruling in the Bombay High Court.

On April 3, 2010, the city police filed a 1,150 page chargesheet in the lakhan Bhaiyya encounter case. In the chargesheet, the police had said they had arrested 10 accused, including Pradeep Sharma, senior PI Pradeep Suryawanshi, three more policemen and five civilians in connection with the case. In their chargesheet, the police had also named 10 other accused, all of whom were subsequently declared absconders. 

In March 2011, the sole eye witness in the case, Anil Bheda went missing. His disappearance since March 14, 2011 prompted the police. His wife moved the Bombay High Court with a habeas corpus (produce the person) petition. She alleged that her husband was abducted and could have been done to death. Two months after in June 2011, Navi Mumbai police

later found a decomposed body and DNA tests confirmed that it was Bheda. Sharma - who had shot to fame by gunning down as many as 112 criminals during his 25-year-long career - was, till a few years ago, one of the poster boys of the Mumbai police. Considered one of the “Dirty Harrys” of the Mumbai police, 51-year-old Sharma used to once lead the pack of the trigger-happy tribe called “encounter-specialists”.

Ironically, a majority of the police officers who had belonged to this tribe in the past like more infamous Daya Nayak, relatively less known Ravindra Angre and Sachin Waze have long been in the doghouse for more or less the same reasons for which Sharma was shown the door one-and-half-years ago. 

Nayak, who had been under suspension since January 23, 2006 for allegedly misusing official position and amassing huge wealth to the tune of several crores of rupees, was re-instated in June last year, after a departmental police committee reviewed his case and recommended revocation of his suspension.

Sharma and other “Dirty Harrys” of the Mumbai police like Nayak, Angre, Waze, Vijay Salaskar and Praful Bhosle had sent panic waves through the underworld in the nineties and in the first half of this decade. Collectively, they shot down over 500 hard-core criminals between 1992 and 2005.

He might have been sidelined in the later years, but Sharma was one of the sought-after officers who would be hand-picked by his bosses to carry out difficult tasks. A tall and well-built officer, Sharma had made it to the pages of “Time” Magazine, along with Daya Nayak, in his hey days, for his dare-devilry.

During his stint as an encounter-specialist, Sharma   liquidated several hard-core criminals and terrorists, including Sadiq Kalia of the D-company, Kamlakar Satavdekar and Vinod Matkar of the Chhota Rajan gang and Rafik Dabbawala of the Subhash Thakur gang.

A senior inspector attached to the Dharavi police station, Sharma was long a high-profile officer. However, he hit a bad patch after his name figured in the investigations into the custodial death of 2003 Ghatkopar bomb blast accused Khwaja Yunus. He was also involved in a disproportionate assets case.

Though he was given a clean chit in the Yunus death case, Sharma could not make it back to the good books of the city and state police top brass. Sharma was subsequently posted to Amravati following a Bombay High Court order. However, he refused to go there citing health reasons. After that, he was posted at Dharavi police station, his last posting. And then came his dismissal from his service on August 31, 2008.

With his acquittal in the lakhan Bhaiyya encounter case, Sharma has a reason to be optimistic about the possibility of his being re-instated in service at a later stage.