New Delhi: The Special Cell of the Delhi Police on Friday said they had arrested Satender alias Satte, a sharpshooter of the Rohit Chaudhary gang, who was allegedly planning to eliminate a deputy superintendent of Tihar Jail to avenge the death of gangster Ankit Gujjar inside his cell.
Satte was an associate of the notorious gangster, the police confirmed.
"With his arrest, a deep-rooted conspiracy to cause harm to a Deputy Superintendent of Tihar Jail in Delhi has been unearthed," the city police claimed.
Gujjar had died under mysterious circumstances after allegedly being thrashed by jail staff earlier this month. The family of the deceased gangster had alleged that he had died in jail due to severe beating by jail staff.
Initially, the Delhi Police had refused to file an FIR in this custodial death matter but after a court order, the police registered a murder case against the concerned DySP and other jail staff, transferring them.
The FIR under charges of murder against the staff of jail no 3 at Tihar was registered in Hari Nagar Police Station in this regard.
Explaining how they got to Satte, the Special Cell said they had received a call recording of Satte in which he was purportedly asking his associate to procure an AK-47 rifle to eliminate jail staff.
A combined team of Special Cell and Southern Range was working to identify both the callers. "Efforts of more than 10 days succeeded when both the callers were identified as Satender and Ajay Gujjar. Surveillance was mounted on the movement of Satte," Pramod Singh Kushwah, DCP, Special Cell said.
The Special Cell arrested him from the Outer Ring Road area of Chirag Delhi on Tuesday. "One semi-automatic pistol of .32 bore with six live cartridges has been recovered from the accused at the spot," the police official also confirmed.
A case under the Arms Act has been registered against him and during the interrogation, Satte purportedly confessed to the offense, the police said. They added that Satte also wanted to establish supremacy in areas of South Delhi. The police said they are raiding the city to nab his associates.
Satte is a notorious criminal previously involved in more than 20 criminal cases including murder, robbery, snatching, threat, criminal intimidation, etc. He was on interim bail in a sensational murder of Prince, a member of the rival gang of Prince Teotia.
Significantly, Ajay Gujjar (25), had been a wrestler and also a most wanted gangster of Palwal, Haryana, and was charged with dozens of criminal cases from extorsion to attempt to murder.
According to police sources, Satte and Ajay Gujjar met through the deceased gangster Ankit Gujjar a couple of times, and they had also been cellmates in jail. Further, Satte approached him to conduct the elimination of the deputy superintendent of Tihar Jail, the police said.
However, after the plot was unearthed, when asked whether the Special Cell is arranging for police protection to the accused DySP, whose murder Satte and Ajay were allegedly planning, officials refused to comment on it.