A sharp shooter of the notorious Sunil Rathi gang Dev Pal Rana was shot dead in a shootout between gangs outside Ramnagar court at Roorkee in Haridwar district where Rana was taken in connection with the hearing of a case on Monday.
Two other accused of the case Satish Kumar of latifpur Nukkad in Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh and Amit of Hakikat Nagar in the same district also received bullet injuries even as police resorted to retaliatory firing. They are now being treated in a hospital. Police said that four shooters of a rival gang-all hailing from Jind district of Haryana- were involved in the shootout. Three of them have been arrested while the fourth was absconding, said police, adding that a manhunt was on to capture the absconder. It is worth mentioning here that Rana was one of the accused of the infamous gang war that broke out outside the Roorkee jail in August 2014 between the criminals of Sunil Rathi gang and Chinu Pandit gang in which 3 persons were killed.
Speaking of the incident, SSP Krishna Kumar VK said that police forces were rushed to the spot soon after the information of the gang war came. “Rana was rushed to a hospital where he succumbed. We managed to nab three shooters while the fourth is still absconding. All the four shooters carried firearms with them from which they opened fire aiming at Dev Pal Rana and two other accused. In his dying statement, Rana uttered the name of one Rishi Pal Rana of Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh. We are now trying to probe the antecedents of Rishi Pal Rana to establish his link with the murder of the accused,” he said.
Rishi Pal Rana is a notorious muscleman based in western UP who is known to call shots during the civic or rural body elections in UP.