Notorious criminal Sandeep Gadoli, wanted by the Haryana police in as many as 36 cases, was shot dead by a visiting team of Gurgaon police in an encounter inside a hotel at Andheri (East) in north Mumbai on Sunday morning.
Two policemen too were injured in the shootout. However, they are out of danger, the city police said.
Acting on a tip-off that Gadoli and his gang members were holed up in a room at the Hotel Airport Metro, a visiting team of police officials from Gurgaon raided the hotel at 11 am, in a bid to arrest the gangster. Gadoli and his aides fired at the visiting police team members, when they tried to enter the hotel room where Gadoli was putting up with his aides.
The Gurgaon police personnel returned the fire, critically injuring Gadoli. Two police men were also injured in the encounter.
Gadoli, who had sustained severe bullet wounds, was taken to a nearby hospital where he succumbed to injuries at 12.55 pm.
“A team of Crime Branch of Gurgaon police had come in search the accused in a murder case, who was residing in a hotel at Andheri-East. When the police team entered his room at around 11 am there was a cross fire between the accused and the police team. He has 36 offences against him. The injured was taken to a hospital where he was declared dead around 12.55 pm,” Deputy Commissioner of Police (Zone X) Vinayak Deshmukh said.
Gadoli, who had been on the run for the past two decades, was wanted by the Gurgaon police in at least 36 criminal cases. He was carrying a cash prize of Rs1.25 lakh on his head.
One of the cases that Gadoli was wanted in was the murder of Ashok Kumar, the driver of Gurgaon Councillor and his rival Binder Gujjar. Kumar was shot dead by the former’s aides at Gurgaon on October 3, 2015. Kumar’s murder, which marked the return of gangwar in Gurgaon, was said to be in retaliation to the Gadoli’s aide Manish Khurana’s elimination at his home carried out a day before Kumar’s death.
Ironically enough, coming as it does on the heels of the reinstatement of yesteryear encounter-specialist Daya Nayak, the encounter killing of Gadoli by the Gurgaon police has revived the memories of encounter killings that Mumbai had witnessed between 1999 and 2002.
During these three crucial years which saw encounter-specialists eliminate over 250 gangsters, the encounter-specialists had unleashed panic within the underworld in the metropolis.
The encounter-killings by the police were a far cry from situation from the 1997-98 when underworld gang lords had unleashed a reign of terror against Bollywood personalities, builders, industrialists, businessmen and other influential people/ in the country’s commercial capital. So much so that the underworld shot over 150 people, most of whom innocent people, beginning with the daring murder of Bollywood music baron Gulshan Kumar on August 12, 1997.
There were some fake encounter killings by between 2006 and 2009 and a couple genuine encounters witnessed during that 2010-11 – including that of an aggrieved resident Harish Marolia who was shot dead on March 17, 2010 after he gunned down a retired customs officer and a 16-year-old girl whom he had taken hostage in a housing society at Andheri (west) in north Mumbai. However, Sunday’s was an action drama involving the encounter killing of a hardened criminal by the Gurgaon police that was akin to the ones witnessed in the late 1990s and early 2000s.