30 hours after he crushed DSP to death in Haryana, truck driver held in Rajasthan

GURGAON: After 30 hours and an equal number of raids, Haryana Police teams tracked down the prime accused in the murder of a 59-year-old DSP to a village in Rajasthan's Bharatpur on Wednesday evening.
Shabir alias Mittar, who crushed DSP Surender Singh Bushnoi to death at an illegal mining site at Pachgaon in Haryana's Nuh district on Tuesday, was hiding in a shop when a team from the state's crime investigation agency (CIA) zeroed in on his location and arrested him. Police said they had received local intelligence that Mittar (30) was hiding at the shop in Bharatpur's Gangora village.
Cornered by DSP Singh, Shabir alias Mittar had accelerated the truck, which was carrying illegally excavated stones, to crush the DSP under its wheels. Mittar's cousin Ikkar (30), who was in the truck at the time, was caught on Tuesday itself, hours after the incident.
Police said 10 teams of cops from three districts and crime investigation agency personnel had been formed to hunt down the culprits. The teams carried out 30 raids in Nuh and adjoining districts of Rajasthan, relying on local intelligence since Mittar had switched off his phone to evade surveillance.
"The idea was to restrict his movement, so that he would run out of places to hide. The accused had been changing his location since Tuesday, so we raided the areas he was hiding in and kept gathering information about him. Teams of police and CIA worked round the clock to make this operation successful," said Nuh SP Varun Singla.
The search parties were able to put a final pin on Mittar's location at 6pm on Wednesday. He was arrested within the hour. The four other accused - one of whom is Mittar's brother Arshad, who owns the dumper truck - are absconding. "We have identified the other four accused..." the SP added.
All six accused - Mittar, Ikkar, Arshad and three others whose names have not been given - belong to Pachgaon village, less than 2km from the hills where DSP Singh was killed.
Amid criticism over illegal mining flourishing in the Aravalis, police said they have ruled out the involvement of a syndicate in Tuesday's killing. Mittar and Ikkar did odd jobs or worked as labourers in Rajasthan, police sources said. When local demand arose, they went to the old quarries in Nuh and mined the stones to sell them, Ikkar is believed to have told police during interrogation.
Singh, the Tauru DSP, was acting on a tip-off when he, his gunman and an assistant sub-inspector (ASI) went to the mining spot in Pachgaon around noon on Tuesday. When intercepted, the accused offloaded some mined stones on the muddy track to block the police vehicle, a Bolero. It didn't work and the DSP's team managed to catch up with the dumper truck.
Mittar and Ikkar then pulled out their guns and threatened the cops with "consequences" before driving the truck in their direction and mowing down the DSP who did not have time to move out of the way.