Delhi's "most wanted" gangster Neeraj Bawana, a feared criminal involved in more than 40 cases of murder and attempt to murder and extortion, was today arrested in the wee hours after a brief encounter with Special Cell of Delhi Police in Qammaruddin Nagar locality.

27-year-old Bawana, whose real name is Neeraj Sehrawat, was arrested from main Rohtak Road around 3:45 AM when he was on his way to meet his family along with an associate Mohd Rashid Khan alias Guddu. Bawana was a "ghostly figure" for police as neither he nor those around him used mobile phones to avoid tracking. He used Internet-based communication system and camouflaged his location, police said.

Guddu, who was travelling with him in a car, was also arrested. Bawana was arrested several times earlier, including in 2012 when he had demanded Rs 50 lakh from Satinder, the then MlA from Narela constituency. He had jumped parole in 2013. "We managed to arrest the most wanted gangster after a trail of 18 months," said Special Commissioner of Police (Special Cell) S N Shrivastava.

Bawana had become an enigma for police as he was giving them a slip though around 35 of his gang members were caught. Police said he was roaming all over North, Central and Western India, setting up bases in the last one-and-half years.

One 'Smith & Wesson Springfield' make pistol which costs around Rs four lakh and one another pistol with 'US Made' engraving were recovered from the duo along with live and spent cartridges. Bawana claimed the top spot of Delhi's underworld after his friend-turned foe Neetu Daboda, the then reigning don of Delhi, was killed in an encounter by Delhi Police on October 26, 2013. He jumped parole after Daboda's death.

"Bawana was much ahead of Daboda in terms of cunningness and realised that instead of taking on the police directly, he took help of his (maternal) uncle who is a politician. Bawana spent huge amount of illegal money earned by him and his syndicate to build electoral fortune of his uncle," said Shrivastava.

Former Mundka MlA Rambeer Shaukeen is Bawana's maternal uncle. Shaukeen's house was raided by Delhi Police in March last year over suspicion that some criminals were hiding at his place. Nine members of Bawana's gang were arrested on February 6, a day before the Delhi Assembly polls, for allegedly exercising muscle power in favour of Reetav Shokeen, wife of Ramveer.

While Daboda was killed, his successor Paras alias Goldy and another gangster Rajesh alias Karambeer were arrested. Bawana's gang seized the opportunity to establish itself as the most dreaded outfit operating a syndicate of extortion and contract killings.

Police clarified that Bawana had no role in the recent killing of former INlD MlA Bharat Singh. "Bawana was collecting a steady stream of extortion money from industrial units operating in Narela and Bawana. He was also the prime protector of gambling and betting in the area. He had also ventured into land grabbing and real estate, acquiring many benaami properties," said Shrivastava.

Recently, he had coordinated the escape of Amit alias Bhura – carrying a reward of Rs 12 lakh on his arrest – from the custody of Uttarakhand Police while he was being produced at Baghpat challenging police forces of Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi.

"Our teams tasked with tracking this don interrogated scores of victims, associates, arrestees and sympathisers and realised over a period of time that Neeraj was, to almost all of them, an 'enigma'– a 'ghostly figure'," said DCP (Special Cell) Sanjeev Kumar Yadav.

It was learnt that the gangster was observing 'complete radio silence' and was exploiting hitherto unheard loopholes in Internet-based communications to conceal his real location, he added. Yadav said the Special Cell had launched a long-drawn operation involving human intelligence and "newer aerial surveillance" to locate Bawana.

The sustained efforts revealed that Delhi, Meerut, Ranchi, Kolkata, Agra, Ahmadabad, Vadodara, Silvassa, Diu, Udaipur, Chandigarh, Rohtak etc. Were the places where the don was passing through, he said. "At no place was he found in touch with his known contacts, which made the task even more difficult. Even he was changing the vehicles at a frenetic pace.

"Various small teams kept picking up vital clues to come to some sort of understanding of what was going on in his mind. This led to the discovery of a fully furnished rented flat taken by the don in Kolkata's Park Street, his contacts with various property dealers and taxi operators in other cities and information platforms," said Yadav.

Giving details of the operation, he said Bawana's visits to Delhi to terrorise his victims and his meeting with the family did him in.