The encounter spot along Meerut-Karnal road . (Express Photo by Gajendra Yadav)
Police on Tuesday claimed to have killed two gangsters, who had killed a 22-year-old bride last month, after a 30-minute exchange of fire on the Meerut-Karnal road.
In a statement, the UP STF said that an informer had told them that the two accused “were in Meerut to carry out a big crime incident and they were waiting in a derelict building with their associates near Padam Cold Storage on Meerut-Karnal Road”. Two police teams reached the house — a derelict one-room structure in the middle of plotted land — at 3.25 am.
According to the statement, the policemen asked the accused to surrender. “They started firing at the police immediately. Around half an hour later, as the firing stopped, the teams reached the house and found the two with bullet injuries,” said Ranvijay Singh, SP (City), Meerut. The statement added that the two were taken to the district hospital but doctors declared them brought dead.
The two were identified as Himanshu Singhal and Dheeraj Chaudhary. The police claimed to have recovered a huge cache of ammunition from their possession, including a 9 mm carbine, a 9 mm pistol, a 32 mm pistol, one 315 bore country made pistol, two carbine magazine, two 9 mm pistol magazines, around 140 bullets as well as a motorcycle.
The two were accused of killing the young bride exactly a month ago after she resisted their robbery attempt.
SSP Rajesh Kumar Pandey Pandey said Himanshu and Deeraj had 20 cases each pending against them and carried a Rs 25,000 reward. “They were part of a (robbers) gang active along the Dehradun highway,’’ he said.
Nearly 30 km from the site of the encounter, which took place under Kankerkheda police station area of Meerut, Himanshi Singhal waited for the body of her younger brother to arrive. “I saw him on April 29 last. He left saying that the police were after him. We did not hear from him since then,” said Himanshi.
Near Himanshi’s house in Ghaziabad’s Modi Nagar, a police chowki in-charge maintained that details about Singhal and Chaudhary were being collected on Monday night. “We had earlier received an input that they might be in this area. It turned out that they were in Meerut district,” he said.
“It was Himanshu who pulled the trigger on the bride — Farhana — who was going to her husband’s home for the first time. His name cropped up when two men were arrested in the case. The STF had been tracking them,” Singh added.
With inputs from AMIT SHARMA