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    Ab Tak 52: Meerut Zone 'encounter score' after biggest encounter of four criminals

    Synopsis

    UP Police ‘avenges’ the killing of its sub-inspector a fortnight ago, another criminal is shot dead in Ghaziabad on Wednesday.

    meerut
    This was the biggest encounter carried out in UP under the Yogi Adityanath regime.
    New Delhi: Ab Tak 52. That is the count in UP’s Meerut Zone of criminals shot dead in police encounters so far under the Yogi Adityanath regime, including the biggest encounter in the state so far on Tuesday where four criminals were killed in two broad-daylight encounters 50 kilometres apart after cops gave them a Bollywood-style chase, and ‘avenged’ the killing of a sub-inspector by these men a fortnight ago.

    The story of the present encounter began on July 2 when a dreaded criminal Rohit escaped from police custody in Muzzafarnagar after he was being taken back to jail after a court hearing. Six men came in a luxury car to fire at the police and help Rohit escape after spending the last four years in jail and facing 44 serious cases. A UP Police sub-inspector, Durg Vijay Singh, was hit by a bullet and the police department was left stunned when he succumbed to the injuries on July 9 in AIIMS, Delhi. Police did arrest three of the six members of Rohit’s gang but three others, Amit, Rajat and Rakesh, remained at large along with the gang-leader. Till Tuesday 5 AM when police claim to have spotted all four of them together on two motorcycles in Muzzafarnagar and say they opened fire when stopped. Rohit and Rakesh were killed here in an encounter while Amit and Rajat, who escaped, were killed eight hours later in Meerut, 50 kms away. As per the police story, Amit and Rajat robbed a SUV while on the run and were ultimately gunned down.

    This was the biggest encounter carried out in UP under the Yogi Adityanath regime. On Wednesday, another wanted criminal who was involved in looting Rs 65 lakh from the company of a Rajya Sabha MP, was gunned down in Ghaziabad. The Meerut Zone, which comprises nine East UP districts including Meerut, Ghaziabad and Muzzafarnagar, has seen the maximum fatal encounters among the seven zones in the state with 52 criminals in all being gunned down here.. 945 criminals were shot, injured and arrested after encounters in the Meerut Zone as well in the last two-and-a-half years, as per the Additional Director General (Meerut Zone) Prashant Kumar, who has been at the forefront of the crackdown. Kumar says four policemen also suffered injuries in Wednesday’s twin encounters in his zone and pistols were recovered from the slain criminals. Shots were fired from both sides, the police insist. All the slain men were wanted too – with Rajat carrying a reward of Rs One lakh on his head and the other three carried rewards of Rs 50,000 apiece. Meerut and Muzzafarnagar in West UP has been backyard of organised gangs of criminals – “we are doing a clean-up”, a senior police official said.


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