Delhi’s most wanted criminal, 38-year-old Sonu Dariyapur, carrying a reward of Rs 5 lakh on his head, who was involved in killing his arch-nemesis in a shootout in April, was arrested on Thursday following a brief exchange of fire.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), Special Cell, Sanjeev Kumar Yadav, said Satyawan alias Sonu Dariyapur was involved in more than ten cases of murder, extortion, abduction and Arms Act in Delhi and Haryana.
In a shootout on April 30, gangster Monu Dariyapur, his personal security officers, Delhi Police ASI Vijay Kumar and constable Kuldeep, and two others, Arun Shastri and Yogesh, were attacked in outer Delhi’s Mianwali Nagar.
Some armed men, including Sonu Dariyapur, had fired more than three dozen bullets leading to the deaths of Monu, Kumar and Shastri and injuring the other two. Monu was previously a member of Sonu Dariyapur’s gang. Both of them were friends but the relationship got bitter after Monu fell in love with Sonu’s cousin and subsequently married her. Enraged at the alliance, Sonu had vowed to kill Monu.
A team of Delhi Police’s Special Cell had been working for the last three months to arrest Sonu Dariyapur.
Police were keeping a tab on his social media profiles that he had created in fictitious names. An officer privy to investigation said that he used to interact with his accomplices through Facebook Messenger. He had created a Facebook account in a fake name.
Dariyapur mainly used whatsapp calling to avoid his calls being intercepted by the police. He also used the Telegram app to interact with his gang members, the DCP said. Police teams had scoured length and breadth of Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh to nab the accused but he has managed to elude, he said.
He kept on changing locations and was surviving on financial aid from the rents on properties he had bought in fake names. He was maintaining a low-profile ever since the first arrest was made in the shootout but his accomplices were carrying on his extortion business, the DCP added.
A team was stationed in Himachal Pradesh since he was hiding there but it was learnt on Wednesday that the accused is leaving for Delhi from there. The police team were deployed at strategic locations in cars and on motorcycles to nab the accused. Meanwhile, the other team from Himachal Pradesh also reached the national Capital. At about 5 am, the staff deployed on the motorcycle at Singhu Border informed that Sonu Dariyapur had been spotted in a white i20 car with a Haryana numberplate, said the DCP.
The accused person’s car was stopped by police teams near NIT Road in Outer Delhi’s Narela.
When he could not find any way to escape, he immediately took out his pistol and fired two bullets on the police party, but both the bullets hit the bulletproof jackets of an assistant sub-inspector and an inspector respectively, said the officer. The police team also fired in retaliation.
The team nabbed Sonu Dariyapur and snatched his sophisticated pistol which was found loaded with 13 live cartridges. After searching his car, police also found another countrymade English pistol loaded with four live cartridges from underneath the driver seat.
The white colour car in which he was travelling was the one in which he had arrived and killed Monu and others in April.
Sonu Dariyapur’s arrest comes after a series of arrests made in the sensational Mianwali Nagar shootout case, the police said.
Six accused persons — Naveen Khatri, Sandee, Sonu alias Kejriwal, Sumit alias Palotra, Satish and Rajesh alias Rajje had been arrested by the Special Cell earlier but the mastermind, Sonu Dariyapur, continued fleeing and dodged the police to evade his arrest.
A reward of Rs 1 lakh was declared on each of the associates while Rs 5 lakh was declared on Sonu Dariyapur’s arrest. One of his other associates, Vijay lamba, who is also wanted in the shootout, is still on the run.
In 2006, Sonu Dariyapur tried to kill his cousin and Monu by firing at them. But, the couple had a narrow and lucky escape but one person Braham was killed in the incident.
Since then, Sonu Dariyapur had been seeking an opportunity to kill Monu, who was provided security cover by the Delhi Police. In 2009, Sonu Dariyapur and his associates killed Monu Dariyapur’s brother Sudhir Kumar in Najafgarh.