New Delhi: One of the two criminals who allegedly shot dead businessman Sunil Jain in east Delhi on Saturday is an accused in the northeast Delhi riots as well, sources said on Monday. The accused, Zaheer alias Guddu, was booked and arrested in three cases related to the communal violence that shook the city in 2020, a senior cop revealed.
A resident of Vishwas Nagar in east Delhi, Zaheer is a shooter of the Hashim Baba-Rashid Cablewala syndicate, police said. Zaheer and his associate, Sachin, are accused of carrying out Jain's killing. Multiple police units are trying to arrest them.
"Zaheer was previously involved in a total of six criminal cases, including three related to arson and robbery during the 2020 riots. In 2023, he was also wanted in two cases of sensational firing at two places in the Trans-Yamuna area on the intervening nights of Sept 23-24," a cop from the Farsh Bazar police station said.
In the firing incident last year, Zaheer and his associates fired more than a dozen rounds at two places as per the directions of Hashim Baba. The gangster's aide, Jain, coordinated the shootings. "At 1 am, Zaheer fired at a drugs supplier to threaten him into paying protection money. Hours later, he fired 10 rounds targeting a real estate office in R Block in Farsh Bazar to terrorise the owner of the real estate office and to extort money from him," the cop added.
After his arrest in riots cases lodged at Karawal Nagar and Sonia Vihar police stations, police recovered mobile phones stolen from the houses of the victims of the riots.
"After coming out of jail, he met Hashim Baba during his appearances on various court dates and started executing the latter's plans. He also divulged that he used to communicate with Jain on his mobile number with a new mobile handset and a new SIM card provided by him. Subsequently, he came in touch with Cablewala," said a senior cop.
Sachin was recently booked by Delhi Police under MCOCA and faced multiple arrests by different units in the last two years, TOI reported on Monday.