Over 30 hours on, no one turns up to claim gangster Rajesh Bharti’s body
NEW DELHI: More than 30 hours after the Delhi Police gunned down gangster Rajesh Bharti, nobody from Bharti’s family had come to identify or claim his body from AIIMS mortuary.
On Sunday afternoon, the families of three other men — Sanjeet Vidhori, Umesh Don and Viresh Rana, who had been gunned down with Bharti in south Delhi’s Chhatarpur on Saturday — reached Fatehpur Beri police station to start formalities to claim the bodies. Police said the autopsies would be conducted on Tuesday by a panel of doctors.
Police they will wait for twothree days and if nobody from Bharti’s family turns up, then the government will officially claim the body and perform the last rites after autopsy. Police suspected that as Bharti was not in touch with his family for the last many years, nobody had come forward to claim his body.
Bharti had made his foray into the world of crime with the murder of his father at the age of 11.
Police said Bharti’s family members had been intimated about the shootout and his death on Saturday. They have been asked to come to Delhi and identify his body, said a police officer.
A special cell officer associated with the operation said Bharti hailed from Haryana’s Jind and led a group named ‘Kranti gang’, which had become a terror among businessmen, bookies and traders across Delhi and Haryana. The gang also threatened policemen in Haryana.
“We got calls from Haryana police personnel who told us how Bharti used to threaten them whenever they raided his hideouts,” said the officer.
‘WE ARE PROUD’
Constable Gurdeep, 27, who suffered two bullets in his chest and is battling for his life at AIIMS Trauma centre, was the youngest and the first among the five officers who was shot at by Bharti and his aides when they were asked to surrender. Police said that as Gurdeep collapsed on the road, 53-year-old sub-inspector, Vijender Singh, pulled him away to cover, and was shot in his arm in the process. The other two injured policemen at the hospital are sub-inspectors Krishan Kumar and Raj Singh.
“During his 15 year tenure in the special cell, my father arrested several terrorists and gangsters and even faced attacks from criminals. But Saturday’s operation was different because he not only had to arrest the criminals but also save his young colleague’s life,” said Vijender Singh’s son Ashish Deswal.
The family members of sub-inspector Raj Singh said that nobody from the central or state government has turned up to meet the injured policemen. “My father was injured in the line of duty. But no politician has extended any help to us,” said Akshay Chaudhary, son of subinspector Raj Singh.
Later, the family members of Vidrohi alleged that the shootout was ‘staged’ and that the police could have given him to chance to surrender. Vidrohi’s brother Manjeet and cousin Sahil Chikkara questioned the timing and place of the encounter, saying no eyewitnesses saw the ‘shootout’.