What’s in a name? New gangs of Delhi, notoriety for old villages

SNEW DELHI: Google the words “Sandeep Singh gangster”, and the search engine shows over 500,000 pages on several alleged criminals named Sandeep Singh. The top results also throw up references to hockey player Sandeep Singh, the former captain of the national team. But there is nothing on Sandeep Singh, Delhi’s most wanted gangster because very few people know the 35-year-old by his real name. Instead, in police files, media reports, and even court papers, he is Sandeep Kala Jathedi, or simply Kala Jathedi.

Jathedi is an urban village on the Delhi-Sonepat border.

Now search for Kala Jathedi, and the engine will give over 600,000 sites with the fugitive’s name. There are also explainers about the gangster, how he operates in Delhi while he is believed to be in Dubai, and his alleged links to the recent murder case in Chhatrasal stadium in which police arrested two-time Olympic medallist wrestler Sushil Kumar.

And, of course, there are details of the nondescript, but now dreaded, hamlet he comes from.

Jathedi is not the only Delhi village in recent months to gain notoriety because of its link with a gangster. Several villages in the outer rim of the Capital have become infamous because the names of several top gangsters are attached to the villages. In court and police records, their gangs are known by the village names. Some of Delhi’s other top gangsters — Sandeep Jathedi, Neeraj Bawana, Nitu Dabodia, Tillu Tajpuria and Vikas Langarpuria — have all chosen to adopt their village names. A trend that the residents of these villages say has brought fear and notoriety to the places where they live and grew up in — places that were otherwise harmless and ordinary, but which are now in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons.

For example, on May 19, when police arrested wrestler Sushil Kumar, he was with his friend Ajay Sehrawat. When confronted by investigators, Ajay told him that his name was Ajay Bakkarwala, a resident of Bakkarwala village in outer Delhi. Police immediately knew they had to take him seriously.

Residents perturbed Subash Solanki, a retired DTC bus driver and a resident of Bakkarwala is perturbed by the link that, he says, is sullying his village. “More than 200 years ago, an Afghan traveller was passing by our village and saw thousands of cattle grazing in the open fields. He was surprised that our village had so many cattle. He had never seen a sight like that. We were told that the traveller had given the name of the village as Bakkarwala. Bakkar in Urdu means cattle. Ours was the village of cattle grazers. But today, Bakkarwala is seen as a criminal village,” he said.

So notorious is the Bakkarwala gang for carjacking across the city that police officers say the first thing they do when a new case is registered is open the crime dossier and check the status of members of gangs of Bakkarwala gang, to see if any of them were in the vicinity of where the incident took place. One of its residents, Manoj Bakkarwala stole over 500 vehicles and was involved in numerous cases of carjacking until 2012. Nobody in Delhi Police remembers Manoj’s actual second name. Manoj’s son, who was arrested last year for similar crimes, is also simply identified as Ashish Bakkarwala.

Thirty-five kilometres away from Bakkarwala, on the DelhiHaryana border, is Tajpur, another Delhi village that has earned the notoriety for multiple cases of extortion, robbery and land grabbing associated with Sunil Maan, better known as Tillu Tajpuria.

Sunil Jaat, who runs a gaushala in Tajpur, said: “People outside our village judge us these days when we say we are from Tajpur. Because of media reports, people think the village is full of criminals. Tajpur is famous for having many wrestling rings and producing many wrestlers. We have Arjuna Award winners such as Om Vir Pehalwan from our village. Even today, most drivers in Delhi Police who work as constables, or in the fire department, are from our village.”

Jaat admits that Tajpur will find it hard to shed the label given to it by Tillu Tajpuria. “Tillu Tajpuria became his name after he got into the wrong side of the law. To us, he was a promising wrestler who had a promising future. He may be in jail but his accomplices keep getting arrested, and the name Tajpuria keeps coming up again and again,” he said.

The one village that has gained the most notoriety is Bawana. Located in the northern part of the city — 47 kilometres from India Gate — the urban village is a mix of farmers who have been living in the village and tens of thousands of migrant workers who work in the factories.

One of its best-known residents, often mentioned in the media, is Neeraj Sehrawat, better known as Neeraj Bawana. Until his arrest in 2015, Bawana was the most wanted gangster in Delhi. Even today, Bawana’s gang continues to operate in several parts of the city and are often arrested in cases of extortion and robbery. Residents of Bawana village, who asked not to be named, say that Neeraj Bawana alone is responsible for bringing their village to disrepute.

A Delhi police constable, who lives in Bawana, said: “Neeraj Bawana made our village famous for the wrong reasons. Sometimes, when I tell my own colleagues about my house in Bawana, the first thing they ask me is about Neeraj Bawana. Nobody talks about the many lawyers or a famous judge in the Delhi lower judiciary that our village has produced. Our elders say that among all villages in Delhi, Bawana sent many soldiers in the British army during World War 1. Nobody talks about this. People think that Bawana is a village of gangsters.” ‘Sense of protection’

Delhi Police officers say it has become fashionable for wannabe gangsters to use their village name as it gives them a false sense of protection.

“The younger ones think they are recognised if they say they are from Bakkarwala gang or Tajpuria gang. They choose to use the village names as their second name. This is why the village’s names gets tarnished. When a trader in Delhi received a threat call from a person, who identified himself as XYZ Bawana it makes an impact. If the same person identifies himself as XYZ Jangpura (a place in south Delhi), very few will take him seriously. Unfortunately, this is the level of how much the villages have been tarnished,” a mid level officer from crime branch, who asked not to be named, said.

Double-edged sword Advocate LN Rao, who was in the Delhi Police for over three decades until he retired as a deputy commissioner of police in 2014, said using the names of the villages is a double-edged sword.

“For the peace-loving residents, it becomes difficult to shed the village’s tag of notoriety. There are cases where people fear to get a prospective groom or bride from such villages. On the other hand, for the criminals, it works because they are also seen in the league of the notorious names from their village. Many youngsters who are yet to cross the line of the law also get swayed by this notoriety and sometimes take the wrong path in life,” Rao said.

Earlier this month, Delhi Police arrested two 17-year-old boys for trying to extort ₹1 crore from an IT executive by claiming to be from Bawana and with links to Neeraj Bawana. On June 4, when police caught them, they confessed they were not from Bawana — had never even been there, had never met the jailed gangster, but believed that they could pull off the heist by simply claiming to be from Bawana.