Dabas alias Bhanja carried a reward of Rs 1 lakh on his head, and was arrested on August 2 by the Special Cell of the Delhi Police. (Representational Image)
Days after allegedly killing three people, including a Delhi Police officer, 28-year-old rugby player Parmeet Dabas had a “heated argument after consuming alcohol” with a gang member, at their hideout in Himachal Pradesh’s Mandi. This prompted Dabas to part ways with the gang, led by Sonu Dariyapur, and shift five cities in the last three months — several times just before the Delhi Police would reach there. His luck ran out after a person he had threatened in the past informed police about his location in Delhi, leading to his arrest.
Dabas alias Bhanja carried a reward of Rs 1 lakh on his head, and was arrested on August 2 by the Special Cell of the Delhi Police. “Police came to know during investigation that a room was taken by him on rent in Nihal Vihar using forged documents. He had also procured several SIM cards that way,” a senior police officer said. Police said one of Sonu’s cousin sisters got married to Dabas’s relative, and ever since then Dabas referred to Sonu as ‘mama’.
On April 30, three people, including Monu Dariyapur, were shot dead in outer Delhi’s Mianwali Nagar. The accused had fired indiscriminately at their car. According to police, Sonu, who is absconding, killed Monu for marrying his sister. “Hours after the shootout, Dabas, Sonu and their associates stayed in Bahadurgarh before driving to Himachal Pradesh the next day. On May 10, they were sitting in their hideout, when Dabas entered into a heated argument with one Sumeet, who was making fun of him. Angry, he decided to part ways with the gang. He first went to Delhi, then Uttarakhand and eventually Haryana. For the last month, he was in Kolkata before he returned to Delhi,” sources said.
Sources said he was about to shift to another city, but was arrested from Aruna Asaf Ali Road by a team led by inspectors Umesh Barthwal and Bhushan Azad, who got a tip-off that he was going to meet an associate. A 9mm pistol with two live cartridges was recovered from his possession. “During interrogation, he told police that he was earlier jailed in a 2007 murder case, in which he was later acquitted. In April 2016, he was admitted to a hospital in Shalimar Bagh for a pancreatic surgery and he took a huge loan which he was unable to repay. This led to him joining Sonu’s gang,” said DCP (special cell) Pramod Singh Kushwaha.
