National decathlete who turned to crime arrested from Hyderabad
Gurugram: The Special Task Force (STF) of the Haryana Police has arrested a wanted gangster involved in over 45 cases of murder, kidnapping and contract killing, a police officer said on Thursday. Sampat Nehra (28), a key member of Lawrence Bishnoi gang, was arrested from Hyderabad on Wednesday. Cases were registered against him in Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan and Chandigarh. He also carried a cash reward on his head and had been absconding for the past few years.
The Lawrence Bishnoi gang is one of the most dreaded gangs and had even threatened to kill Bollywood star Salman Khan. The gang is quite active on social media platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp.
Nehra and his gang were involved in the attempted murder of an INLD leader's brother, demanding a ransom of Rs 3 crore from a businessman in Chandigarh, opening fire at a police team to free their associate Deepak from police custody and killing a man after looting his SUV at gun-point in Kurukshetra. The story of the gangster is no less than a script gone completely wrong. Son of a police official Nehra was national decathlon player and wanted to prolong his carrier in the field of sports. Two years back he, however, changed his mind and turned into nefarious activities. At the end, he had 12 cases of murder and six cases of attempted murder along with host of criminal activities registered against him. He also began targetting the rich businessmen by demanding enormous amounts of protection money from them.
The arrest also signified the number of gangs growing in the northern areas of Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan where bright individuals who have excelled in sports and academics joining the ranks. Being the richest in Haryana, Gurugram for long, has been impacted by such gangs. Besides the main gangs, there are also various small gangs posing a threat to law and order challenge in the city. A whopping amount of Rs 12 crore was recovered from the busting of 53 gangs by Gurugram Police last year. Some of these gang members in the process also resulted in exchange of gunshots between the officials and the culprits.
Once dependent on encounter specialists, the Gurugram Police now wants to play safe in using their services in dealing with the deadly gangs operating in Gurugram. For a long time, the services of the special men trained solely to kill was a strategy adopted for elimination of dangerous gang leaders of Gurugram. However, controversial process involved during encounters, judicial intervention and high costs used for the department for encounter specialists has meant the change in strategy for the Gurugram Police.
Police sources in the Crime Branch maintain that there has been a reduction in the dangers posed by the deadly gangs of Gurugram as most of their leaders have either been eliminated or arrested. However, the sources also conceded that the danger from the gangs and their members has still not fully been removed. "Our officials are well trained to deal with criminals who attack us and proper procedures are adopted. Even as challenges remain the police have reduced the influence which these gangs used to possess at one point of time," said a senior police official from Gurugram Crime Branch.
