Pradeep Sharma (in plainclothes) comes out of the court after he was acquitted in Mumbai on Friday. (PTI)

Mumbai, July 5: Former encounter specialist Pradeep Sharma was today acquitted in the 2006 Lakhan Bhaiyya encounter case even as 21 others were convicted.

Named as accused no. 1 in the case, the 52-year-old senior police inspector was acquitted by sessions judge V.D. Jadhwar of all charges. But the grounds for his acquittal were not read out in the open court.

The court, however, convicted another senior police officer, Pradeep Suryawanshi, for murder. Twenty others, including 13 policemen, were convicted under various sections of the IPC. The court will pronounce the sentence on July 8.

According to the prosecution, a police team had picked up Ramnarayan Gupta alias Lakhan Bhaiyya, alleged to be a close aide of underworld don Chhota Rajan, and his aide Anil Bheda from Vashi in Navi Mumbai on November 11, 2006.

Lakhan Bhaiyya was gunned down the same night in an encounter near Nana Nani Park in Versova in the western suburbs. Bheda was allegedly detained for nearly a month at various locations.

Four days after the encounter, Lakhan Bhaiyya’s advocate-brother Ramprasad Gupta moved Bombay High Court alleging the encounter was “fake”. In February 2008, the high court ordered a magisterial inquiry, which concluded the encounter was fake and it was a “cold-blooded murder”.

In September 2009, the high court constituted a special investigation team and directed it to re-investigate the case. The SIT had arrested Sharma, one of Mumbai police’s notorious encounter specialists with over 100 “encounters” to his name, on January 8, 2010.

During the trial, more than eight witnesses had turned hostile. But the biggest blow came in March 2011 when Anil Bheda, a key witness, went mysteriously missing from his house in Vashi.

Scheduled to depose before the court on March 18, Bheda went missing on March 13. On June 30, 2011, Navi Mumbai police found Bheda’s decomposed body in a creek.

Reacting to the verdict, Lakhan Bhaiyya’s brother Ramprasad said it was a setback. “Yes, it is a setback because Pradeep Sharma was the main accused. But I am happy that the court has convicted other policemen,” he said.

“The main evidence against Sharma was that the bullet found in the deceased’s head came from his gun. On what grounds he was acquitted, I will examine after I get a copy of the judgment. I will appeal in Bombay High Court.”

Public prosecutor Vidya Kasale said: “The bullet recovered from the body of the deceased matched with Sharma’s weapon. It was a kind of direct evidence…. Perhaps the court has not accepted our arguments, it appears.”

Sharma once led the pack of “encounter specialists” of the Mumbai crime branch — dubbed the Dirty Harrys —that killed over 300 alleged gangsters between 1998-2001. Along with Daya Nayak, Sharma controlled the Andheri unit and killed 112 criminals in over 25 years of service.

However, after the mysterious death of Khawaja Yunus, an accused in the 2003 Ghatkopar bus blasts case, the “encounter specialists” were no longer in the good books of the Mumbai police top brass.

Sharma was dismissed from Mumbai police on August 31, 2008, for alleged links with the Dawood Ibrahim and Chhota Rajan gangs. He was summarily dismissed under Section 311 (2) of the Constitution using special powers.

However on May 7, 2009, the Maharashtra administrative tribunal ruled that the dismissal was untenable under law and ordered that he should be reinstated. He was then arrested in Lakhan Bhaiyya encounter case and lodged at the Thane central jail.