Delhi police hunt for 70 missing convicts

Twenty-four years ago, Mannu, a homeless man, killed a man in a public park near Bangla Sahib Gurudwara after an altercation. Mannu was arrested and later convicted to life imprisonment. After seven years in jail, Mannu was granted bail by the Delhi High Court, but with an undertaking that he would report to the Parliament Street police station once a and attend the court on future dates. He, however, vanished.

A woman from Nepal, Madhu alias Mamta, was arrested in 2009 and later convicted for kidnapping a minor girl and selling her to a brothel at GB Road. In 2013, she secured four-week bail for undergoing surgery, but on the condition that she would return to jail soon. Madhu came out of prison but never returned.

Like Mannu and Mamta, there are more than 70 such wanted convicts who never returned to prison after their temporary release. As many as 50 of the wanted convicts were awarded life imprisonment for murder. A few of them were booked for robbery, attempt to murder, abduction, rape, and circulating counterfeit currency notes, shows the list of such absconding convicts available with the Delhi Police accessed by HT.

The city police prepared this list around two months ago after a meeting with the Delhi’s home department to implement the Supreme Court’s directions to constitute a committee to monitor and review cases wherein convicts never returned to serve remainder of their imprisonment, a senior police officer who attended the meeting said on the condition of anonymity.

“The crime branch was made the nodal agency to identify such convicts, share details with station house officers (SHOs) of the police stations concerned and seek their progress report,” said the officer cited above.

Initially, the city police found that around 80 convicts, including women, terrorists, and some hardened criminals, never returned.

“The list was shared with the concerned police stations and the officials were directed to trace them. As a result, 10 such convicts were either caught or they surrendered before the courts. Two others were found to have died,” said additional commissioner of police (crime branch) Rajiv Ranjan.

Another officer in the crime branch said that names of 16 more absconding convicts were recently added to the list after the Delhi prisons shared their details.

Among the absconding convicts were two Jaish-e-Mohammed militants from Jammu and Kahsmir– Abdul Majeed Baba and Bashir Ahmed alias Ponnu – who evaded the law for five years. The two were acquitted by a city court, but was later reversed by the High Court.

Delhi Police’s anti-terror wing, special cell, was tasked with tracking them down.

A ₹4 lakh reward was announced for their arrest, said Sanjeev Kumar Yadav, DCP (special cell). He said that a team was sent to Jammu and Kashmir to collect information about the current whereabouts of the two militants.

“We spoke to their family, friends, neighbours and activated human intelligence and technical surveillance. Our team used to pose as tourists and traders from Delhi to remain in touch with villagers and collate information about the duo. These efforts worked and Abdul was caught on May 11. Bashir was caught from Srinagar on July 15,” he said.

Similarly, two brothers – Ahemad Sikander and Mohammad Suleman – convicted for allegedly killing their rival, Mohammad Nazim, in 2008 in Jama Masjid area were caught recently after the local police began raiding his hideouts and mounted pressure on his family members. The two had come out of jail in 2013 after the High Court reduced their life imprisonment period. Nazim’s family appealed against the order in the Supreme Court, which upheld the city court’s sentencing.

“Their family members were questioned, we examined their friends, neighbours, former associates and even those who had become approvers for them in the court. We also conducted surprise visits at their home and other whereabouts. Police personnel in plain clothes were deployed outside their home. The two were finally arrested,” said an officer of the Jama Masjid police station who is not authorised to speak to media.

The oldest case in the list is of Jagdish alias Kala, a resident of Delhi’s Paharganj, who was convicted in a rioting and murder case registered at the Nabi Karim police station in 1987. Police database showed that Kala was absconding since 2014 and efforts to nab him were made till 2017. However, interesting twists came in the case when the local police started afresh after they got the list of absconding convicts.

“Since it was an old case and records were not available in the police station. We approached the court and obtained the file related to the case. The documents in the left us baffled as the person who was being searched was actually acquitted in the case in 2014 itself. However, he went missing after being released from the jail. His family members had also filed his missing complaint. The efforts made till 2017 was actually to trace a missing man and not an absconding convict,” an officer of the police station said.

Many police officers said that since many of absconding convicts were murder accused their dossiers are not available in the police database. “Dossiers that contain photographs of people arrested for murder were not prepared till the past some years. Finding absconding convicts without it is like finding a needle in a haystack,” an officer said

First Published: Aug 19, 2019 05:22 IST