How collab with Raj's 'Revolver Rani' helped Kala Jathedi disguise himself

New Delhi: A search across 12 Indian states finally ended when the Special Cell of Delhi Police arrested most wanted gangster Kala Jathedi from the Saharanpur area late Friday night.

Jathedi absconded in February last year after escaping from the custody of Haryana Police. He was heading a major criminal alliance of dreaded gangsters Lawrence Bishnoi of Punjab, Haryana, Sube Gujjar of Haryana and Anand Pal (now deceased) of Rajasthan.

Apart from Jathedi, police also arrested Anuradha Chaudhary, an infamous don of Rajasthan, with a long criminal history and close association with Anand Pal. While Jathedi had a reward of Rs 6 lakh on his arrest, Anuradha had a reward of Rs 10,000.

DCP (special cell) Manishi Chandra said when Jathedi was previously arrested in 2012, he was then wanted in 34 different criminal cases. After his escape from the custody of Haryana Police in 2020, he and Anuradha had jointly started running a major international criminal alliance which has known nodes of wanted criminal one Virender Pratap (operating from Thailand) Satenderjeet Singh alias Goldy Brar (operating from Canada) and one Monty (operating from the UK).

"This criminal alliance was engaged in high-profile extortions, interstate bootlegging, especially in dry states, illegal firearms smuggling and land-grabbing," one senior official said.

As per officials, to maintain their unquestioned supremacy in the underworld of Delhi-Punjab-Haryana-Rajasthan, the alliance had got over twenty opponents "eliminated" in the last two years. Currently, Jathedi was wanted in 15 cases of robbery, dacoity, attempt to murder, extortion and Arms Act in Delhi.

The police have also said he was the mastermind behind the jailbreak of his gang member, Kuldeep Mann, whom he had helped escape from GTB Hospital in a bloody shootout. Mann was subsequently killed in a police encounter.

"Jathedi is estimated to be wanted in over 25 cases registered in three other states of Punjab, Rajasthan, Haryana and the UT of Chandigarh. The details of these cases are being collected," the police said.

Meanwhile, Anuradha, whose criminal rap sheet ranges from kidnapping, extortion, Arms and Excise Act violations to cheating, was also infamous among the business communities of Nagaur, Sikar, Didwana and others in Rajasthan. Her mentor or godfather, Anand Pal, was killed in a police encounter in 2017.

"Anuradha is known to have used burst fire from AK-47 as a favourite weapon for intimidating her victims," investigators said. She has over 12 criminal involvements in Rajasthan and is currently wanted in two separate FIRs of abduction, extortion and firing registered in Nagaur.

Under a well-planned conspiracy, the gang members allegedly floated rumours of Jathedi fleeing India to evade arrest. Thereafter, Jathedi disguised himself as a Sikh and started growing a beard and wearing a turban. After Anuradha joined him, they got fake identities as husband-wife and were constantly shifting bases across different states to avoid trial. They had formulated stringent protocols for communication amongst themselves and associates to maintain fair-proof secrecy, the police said.

During the investigation of Jathedi's links, 20 important members of his gang were arrested over the past one and a half years. The team of Special Cell, led by an ACP and two Inspectors, started trailing the identifiers from Goa and the search led them to Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana and Uttarakhand. The team, in its dogged pursuit, was finally able to grab footage that showed Kala Jathedi in Sikh attire along with Anuradha, the police said.

"Thereafter, the operation was code-named 'Op D-24' to signify that the criminal was running ahead of us by only 24 hours," the official said. On July 30, the accused were nabbed from Saharanpur – Yamuna Nagar highway, U.P. An imported PX-3 pistol and Anuradha's "favourite" weapon, an IOB makes 0.38 revolver, along with living cartridges, were recovered from their respective possession.