Criminal nabbed after gunfight

NEW DELHI: A convicted criminal who has been involved in shootouts with the police, twice in the past, was arrested from South Delhi following a brief gun battle with a police team in the early hours of Friday.

Two policemen were hit on their chests when the criminal, Kasim Mullah, opened fire, but bullet-proof vests protected them from any injury, said Romil Baaniya, DCP (SouthEast).

Mullah was on his way to Okhla Mandi to allegedly extort money from shopkeepers, when the police team intercepted him. Wanted also for a murder, apart from several extortion cases, Mullah was carrying a reward of ₹50,000 on his head.

His first encounter with the Delhi Police was in 1998 when he opened fire on a team trying to apprehend him. A police constable was injured in that incident, leading to Mullah’s conviction and a seven-year prison sentence. After his release from jail, he went back to the crime world, police alleged. In 2006, he again shot at some policemen trying to arrest him.

In this case, it was Mullah who received a bullet injury when the police retaliated. He was arrested and spent time in jail until 2011.

The very next year, Mullah was allegedly involved in a daylight robbery in North-East Delhi’s Bhajanpura. “He and his associates made away with R 14.5 lakh in cash after robbing a Vodafone vendor,” said the DCP.

After that, extortion was a crime that caught Mullah’s attention and he allegedly began extorting from shopkeepers in Okhla and Ghazipur Sabzi Mandis. It was late night on Thursday that a special staff team of SouthEast Delhi district police were tipped-off about Mullah visiting Okhla on a motorcycle.