New Delhi: Over 40 bullets were exchanged during a shootout in Delhi’s Rohini early Thursday, in which four members of Sigma and Company gang, wanted in five criminal cases including four contract killings in Bihar, were killed, senior crime branch officers said.
In a joint operation, the Delhi and Bihar police teams intercepted a Baleno car with fake registration plates, moving from Ambedkar Chowk towards Pansali Chowk on Bahadur Shah Marg, after tracking the suspects’ movement in the city through technical surveillance, joint commissioner of police (crime) Surender Kumar said while sharing details of the shootout at the Delhi Police headquarters.
“At 2.20 am, the team members spotted the suspects travelling in a Maruti Baleno car and asked them to surrender. Instead of surrendering, the four occupants of the car fired indiscriminately at our raiding team. Our team members retaliated in self-defence and fired back at them. All four men were injured during the exchange of fire. They were taken to Baba Saheb Ambedkar hospital, where the attending doctors declared them dead at 3.15 am,” he added.
According to the police officers, the four criminals fired around 25 rounds using five firearms — four semi-automatic and one country-made pistol — they were carrying, while the police team responded with at least 15 bullets.
The four deceased criminals were identified as gang leader Ranjan Pathak (25), Bimlesh Mahto (25), Manish Pathak (33), and Aman Thakur (21). Thakur was a resident of Delhi’s Karawal Nagar, while the other three were from Sitamarhi district in Bihar, police said.
Joint commissioner Kumar said that the crime branch had received information from Bihar’s Sitamarhi district police about the presence and movement of four wanted criminals in Delhi.
“A Bihar Police team was already camping in Delhi to locate and arrest the suspects. We worked on the information shared by the Bihar Police about their wanted criminals, activated our human intelligence network, and also mounted technical surveillance. It was learnt that the suspects had been in Delhi for at least the past two to three days to evade arrest,” Kumar said, adding that further efforts helped the crime branch team locate the suspects in Rohini, under the jurisdiction of the Begampur police station.
Ranjan Pathak was involved in at least eight heinous crimes, including five murders, in Bihar’s Sitamarhi district, while Bimlesh, Aman, and Manish were involved in four, three, and two murder cases respectively, deputy commissioner of police (crime) Sanjeev Yadav said, adding, “Together, the four committed four contract killings and one case of threatening for extortion in Bihar in less than three months — between July 18 and October 13.”
The four killed a man by pumping six bullets into his body on July 18. On August 21, they shot a person five times, while in the third contract killing — the date of which has not been shared by the police — they fired three bullets at the victim. The fourth contract killing happened on September 29, in which the victim sustained six bullets, the DCP added.
A police officer who was part of the gunfight said that Ranjan had established himself as an aspiring gangster of Bihar after committing the series of contract killings and extortions. Less than 24 hours before his death in the shootout, Ranjan had telephonically threatened a person in Bihar and demanded extortion money, he said.
“Ranjan also bragged about his criminal achievements in the local crime world in Bihar’s Sitamarhi. He had also uploaded a video on his social media account, showing a pistol in his hand,” the officer added.
While the city police did not officially comment on the political links of the four criminals in Bihar, at least three crime branch officers, requesting anonymity, said the four were planning contract killings and other crimes such as extortion and threatening individuals ahead of the Bihar elections.
