A joint team of Special Task Force (STF) and Kheri police gunned down a hardened criminal bearing Rs 25,000 award in his name during an encounter with the latter in Kheri district on Saturday night.
The miscreant identified as leelu aka Neelu Fauzi of Hapur was named in several cases of crime and was absconding since he fled from police custody from Ujjain in 2015. He currently was working for Mewati/ Salli Gang of New Delhi and also was an active member of Sarwar Gang of Hapur. After executing several loot and murder incident in Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Rajsthan and UP in the past, he took to extortion ‘business’ and road holdup incident in which he and his aides used to loot container/lorries. After he remained untraceable, the UP and Rajasthan police announced award his name, the case was assigned to STF.
Giving details, a police spokesman said a team was tipped off about Fauzi’s presence in city area of Kheri district on Saturday night. “On the information, a joint team of Kotwali police station of Kheri and STF laid a trap around the place. When Fauzi along with his aide was spotted they were asked to surrender at which Fauzi opened fire on the team. In the exchange of fire, Fauzi suffered injuries while his aide succeeded in escaping taking advantage of the darkness in the area,’ the police spokesman said. He said Fauzi was rushed to hospital where he was declared brought dead.
The spokesman added that Fauzi used to take shelter in Nepal and Assam after executing the crime and he was also involved in criminal activities in Andhra Pradesh. He added that Fauzi had survived an encounter with the Mathura Police in 2017 in Shergarh locality of Mathura. In the encounter, one his aide identified as Kasim was gunned down. later, his mentor Sahun, who ran the Mewati Gang, was nabbed by the New Delhi police.