For four days, Pandey led cops on wild goose chase
New Delhi: As officers of Delhi and Uttar Pradesh Police were actively looking for him all over Lucknow and eastern UP, Ashish Pandey smartly dodged the police for over four days.
Pandey took both the technically-advanced Delhi police and topographically-informed UP Police by surprise, when he appeared at Patiala House Court out of nowhere on Thursday and surrendered.
All the Delhi Police could do was to send a team to take him into custody.
It seems that Pandey was quick to realise that the viral video, which put him in trouble, was made by a mobile phone. Because of this, the video quickly made its way through WhatsApp groups, and eventually on social media websites.
As soon as he came to know of the mobile clip, showing him brazenly brandishing a pistol, he smelled trouble coming.
Cops said that the first thing he did was to switch off his own mobile phone, which was his first step in dodging the police teams from Delhi and UP.
Their efforts to nab him on the basis of technical surveillance were nullified as he now had no cellular presence.
On October 15, when Delhi Police teams rushed to Lucknow, they had little idea that they are up against a man who with technical know-how.
Meanwhile, the UP Police – which also sent three teams and was better equipped than their counterparts in Delhi – got the list of possible hideouts of Pandey.
Raids were soon conducted at his Lucknow residence, as well as in Akbarpur and Ambedkarnagar. All the raids, however, went in vain as no traces of Pandey were found.
Belonging to a family of politicians and having a strong influence in eastern Uttar Pradesh, Pandey never required a mobile phone to get in touch with his friends or family.
"Since he was not using a mobile, it made things difficult for us to arrest him from wherever he was hiding," said a senior police officer. This forced cops to rely on human intelligence, but by the time they cold succeed, Pandey was on his way to Patiala Hosue court and took everyone by surprise.
