Shootout at Akshardham Temple

New Delhi: An encounter took place between the Delhi police and some unidentified armed criminals near Akshardham Temple in East Delhi on Sunday morning. However, no one was injured in the shootout.

According to a senior police official, at around 10.45 am on Sunday, the staff of PS Mandawali laid a trap to catch a gang who would dupe people of their belongings near Akshardham Metro station foot overbridge. When the suspected white colour car approached there, the staff signalled them to surrender but the suspects fired one round at the team and sped towards Geeta Colony flyover.

“Upon being fired at, our team also fired back. No one is injured. The police team chased them towards Gandhi Nagar but the suspects managed to escape,” the police official said.

The officer added that the gang was involved in loot activities. “They used to provide cab services to people at lower rates from the Metro station and then used to loot them. CCTV footages are being analysed. The car hasn’t been located yet,” he added.

In a separate incident, a 40-year-old man was arrested following an encounter with the police in Seemapuri area on Saturday night. A pistol along with 22 cartridges were recovered from his possession. A reward of '25 thousand was put on him. The accused, identified as Aasif (40), was a resident of Nand Nagari. He was involved in 40 cases of dacoity, murder, robbery, snatching etc.

He was also wanted in the murder case of his wife and was absconding since then, police said, adding that he was also planning to murder his sister-in-law and mother-in-law, who were pursuing the murder case of his wife.

The Delhi police have also arrested three gangsters after an encounter at Delhi’s Najafgarh on Kair-Mitraon road on Saturday evening. Police said that the accused are members of Deepak Dhankhar group, a proxy group of gangster Kapil Sangwan alias Nandu.

The accused have been identified as Vicky (27), Naveen alias Tinku (20), both residents of Najafgarh, and Deepak (28), a resident of Gurugram in Haryana.

During interrogation, it was revealed that all the three had been involved in arranging funds for Nandu. On September 21, they had threatened a businessman and came to collect extortion money from him, but their luck ran out.