The Uttarakhand police Special Task Force (STF) arrested a notorious criminal Devpal Rana, native of Saharanpur (Uttar Pradesh), from Kurukshetra (Haryana) on Tuesday night who was allegedly involved in the gang war that erupted outside Roorkee sub-jail in August 2014, resulting in the death of three persons.
Police had announced a reward of Rs 20,000 on his head. While informing the media of the arrest of the dreaded criminal, STF senior SP of Renuka Devi said that acting on a tip -off, a team led by inspector RB Chamola had arrested the accused. Interrogation of the accused revealed that he was a close aide of the dreaded gang-lord Sunil Rathi. He was one of the criminals who opened fire to eliminate another gang-lord Cheenu Pandit when the latter came out of the Roorkee sub-jail on bail. Pandit escaped, though three people fell to the shots fired.
Regarding the incident, a case under sections 147/148/149/302/307/120b, 420/467/468/471 of IPC had been registered in Gangnahar police station in Roorkee. Though some of the accused was arrested Rana remained fugitive.
Rana was recruited as a police constable in undivided Uttar Pradesh in 1991/92. His service was terminated by Uttarakhand police in 2000. In 2002, he was allegedly involved in a loot case in Manglaur in Haridwar. later, he got associated with a gang run by a hardcore criminal Sanjeev Maheshwari alias Jeevan, involved in extortion and murder. His wife Neelam Rana was elected a block Pramukh of Nanauta block in Sahaspur. However, he fell out with Jeevan and turned to Sunil Rathi gang. He provided shelter to Amit Bhura, another member of the Rathi gang, who escaped while being taken to a court for hearing in Uttar Pradesh. As per investigation report, around 16 criminal cases were registered against Rana in several police stations like those in Muzaffarnagar, Haidwar, Saharanpur and Roorkee.