GANGS OF UTTAR PRADESH
respect police. Until the spate of encounters, the morale of UP police was at an all time low,” Singh said.
According to police records, the Meerut zone has at least 517 gangs, having 2,470 criminals collectively.
Their clout runs from the industrial areas of Ghaziabad, Noida and Greater Noida to the villages of Saharanpur, Shamli and Muzaffarnagar.
Several gangs such as the ones headed by Sunder Bhati and Mukeem Kala have a multi-state reach.
These crime syndicates are involved in extortion, kidnapping, contract killing and robbery — from Uttar Pradesh to New Delhi to Haryana.
The security establishment was shocked when a contract killer, arrested by UP police’s special task force (STF) this February for the murder of a BJP leader and his two guards in Greater Noida last year, told interrogators that the Bhati gang is well-entrenched in New Delhi.
“The man told us how the Bhati gang has captured the MCD toll booth of New Ashok Nagar-Noida border and extorts money from private contractors. Bhati’s musclemen collect money from vehicles entering Delhi but hand over only 50% of the tax receipts to the Delhi municipality,” said an STF officer who refused to be named.
“They do this at many border points. Such is the extent of their operation. There are at least 48 border points. The loss to the municipality is in crores of rupees every month. We have informed Delhi police,” he said.
UP police have arrested 964 members from 493 “registered” gangs in Meerut zone over the past year, but at least 665 are on the run — suspected to be hiding in New Delhi and Haryana. Police have announced rewards between ₹1 lakh and ₹20,000 for 295 fugitives.
The gangsters come in all shapes and sizes — and age. The most wanted gangster in western UP is 61-year-old Sushil Moonch of Muzaffarnagar. He is a suspect in the murder of a 60-year-old woman and her son in Meerut’s Sorkha village on January 25. His victims were witnesses in another murder case against Moonch.
The gangsters carry an array of weapons — mostly firearms made locally in small illegal units that are dime a dozen in western UP. Police seized 700 countrymade pistols in a factory set in a sugarcane field in Kairana last year. Another factory in a sugarcane field was busted in Muzaffarnagar.
“Nobody depends on pistols from Munger or Bhopal. The bigger gangs may use sophisticated carbines and 9MM pistols, but petty criminals buy local pistols for ₹3,000,” said constable Ratan Singh.
The security forces were surprised when gangster Shravan used an AK-47 assault rifle during a shootout in Noida on March 24.
The AK-47 couldn’t save him, but the weapon’s appearance in a criminal’s hands worried police. Similarly, gangster Shabir killed a constable with a carbine before he was shot dead in Kairana.
“UP police is not like Delhi or Mumbai police. Criminals take advantage of our outdated system. Constables like me get ₹150 a month as bicycle expense. Imagine chasing criminals on cycles,” said a constable from Muzaffarnagar, who refused to be identified.
The Meerut zone additional director general of police Prashant Kumar drew from the epic Mahabharata to describe the region’s historical connection to violence. “This was Hastinapur during the Mahabharata days. But now things have settled. Criminals are surrendering or have fled to other states. These nine districts in western UP are seeing peace for the first time,” he said.