Wanted gangster Lagarpuria held

The Delhi police has apprehended a wanted gangster from southwest Delhi’s Dwarka area after years of evading arrest, and claimed to have busted a gang of extortionists with the arrest.

The accused, identified as Vikas Gulia, alias Lagarpuria (25), a resident of Haryana’s Jhajjar district, was arrested on Saturday by the sleuths of AATS/SWD. An English pistol and four live cartridges were also recovered from his possession. “The dreaded criminal Vikas Lagarpuria is the kingpin and is operating his own gang which is involved in crimes like murder, attempt to murder, robbery, extortion etc. He has many sharp-shooters in his gang who also have sophisticated automatic weapons with them,” a police officer said.

The police said that Lagarpuria himself was previously involved in many as 12 cases of murder, attempt to murder, robbery and extortion. He operated his gang along with other dreaded criminals like Dheerpal Kana, Dheerpal Reduwas and Mahender among others, who are presently lodged in the Bhondsi Jail in Gurgaon. The gang was active in Delhi and Haryana. “Such was his terror that not only the public at large, but also the rival gangs were afraid of him.”

On April 13, an incident of firing at Aggarwal Sweets in Najafgarh was reported by Sanjay Kumar, who alleged that he received extortion calls, demanding Rs 25 lakhs as protection money, which he refused to give. Hence in the evening, two men on a motorcycle fired two rounds and fled, following which a case was registered and investigation was taken up. Another similar case was registered against the gang at the Baba Haridas Nagar police station. “During the course of investigation, massive efforts were launched to trace and apprehend the accused persons who had orchestrated and executed the crime.”

In view of gravity of the crime, the police formed a dedicated team of personnel and launched a search with deft technological penetration and secret information network that led to arrest of the gangster, who was hiding in Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh and Haryana. Lagarpuria’s associates in the two incidents — Vikas alias PK, Vineet alias Johny and Pawan Gulia — had been arrested by the sleuths two months ago.

“We received information that Lagarpuria will arrive at the aforesaid area to meet someone in the evening, and accordingly a trap was laid,” the official said, adding: “On his arrival, our men stopped him there. Sensing he was being cornered by cops, Lagarpuria made an attempt to escape and whipped out a loaded pistol aiming at the team. But before he could do fire, our men overpowered him.”

The police said the accused had planned these incidents to threaten the victim and to extort a handsome amount from them. “He had further planned that in case the victim failed to pay him the money he would even murder them,” the official added.