Uttar Pradesh: Six encounters in 24 hours, two criminals killed

The AK- 47 recovered by Noida police. (Source: UP Police/Twitter)

“A criminal wanted in a murder case in Delhi and Noida has died in an exchange of fire with Noida police in the morning. One AK-47 and one SBBL gun have been recovered from him,” office of DGP UP said.

In Saharanpur, a man identified as Salim died of bullet injuries while his accomplice managed to escape after an encounter with police. Salim carried a bounty of Rs 1 lakh on his head. The police have recovered Rs 1 lakh, one motorcycle and a pistol from them. The SWAT team, comprising personnel of Sarsawa and Mandi police stations, spotted the gangsters coming on bike from Chilkana and flagged them down to stop, but, ignoring the signal, they opened fire on police.

Saharanpur SSP Babloo Kumar told ANI: “As soon as we were informed about the incident we started rigorous checking and barricading. During the encounter, one of our personnel also got injured and is being treated in a hospital. Criminal killed had been involved in various crimes previously.”

In Ghaziabad, police said they shot at a wanted thief Rahul and managed to injure him. A constable was also injured in the encounter. In another encounter in the same city, a man identified as Sonu, wanted in a murder case, who was carrying Rs. 25,000 on his head, was shot at and arrested.

The UP police have faced a lot of criticism in the recent past for the number of encounters in the state but the Yogi government has maintained its tough stand – “bandook ka jawab bandook se diya jayega”. In February last month, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had accused the opposition of sympathising with criminals, even as he declared in the state Legislative Council that police encounters in the state would not stop. Speaking in the House during the Zero Hour, Adityanath pointed towards the opposition and said everybody knew who gave patronage to criminals.