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regular-article-logo Monday, 06 May 2024

Shootout at Delhi court kills three

Two men in lawyers’ black coats fired and killed a gangster on a corridor at Rohini court before being shot dead by the victim’s police guards

Our Bureau New Delhi Published 25.09.21, 12:44 AM
Advocates outside Rohini court in New Delhi on Friday following the shootout

Advocates outside Rohini court in New Delhi on Friday following the shootout PTI

Two men in lawyers’ black coats fired and killed gangster Jitender Maan alias Gogi on a corridor at Delhi’s Rohini court on Friday afternoon before being shot dead by the victim’s police guards.

The killing of Gogi and the shootout with the police that followed a few feet from the door of court No. 207, where the accused was to be produced, sent lawyers and spectators ducking behind furniture inside the courtroom, videos show.

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People from other courtrooms, including child visitors who had come with their parents, ran helter-skelter.

Gogi was riddled with six bullets from behind, suggesting he was exposed at the rear despite five to six armed cops accompanying him. He was declared dead on arrival at a hospital. No policeman or bystander was injured during the entire incident.

Video footage shows policemen shooting, apparently at the two assailants who cannot be seen.

Officers said the alleged killers, Rahul and Moris, were from a rival gang led by Sunil alias Tillu Tajpuria, who has been in Sonipat jail in Haryana since his arrest in 2015. Gogi, arrested last year, was in Tihar.

Both Gogi and Sunil faced multiple cases of murder, attempt to murder, extortion, illegal arms possession, carjacking and land-grabbing in Delhi and Haryana, the police said.

The Coordination Committee of All District Bar Associations in Delhi resolved to abstain from work on Saturday citing the lack of security.

“Such incidents have been happening repeatedly. Despite the issue being raised with the police commissioner, no concrete step has been taken,” said Rakesh Sherawat, chairperson, Bar Council of Delhi.

Two accused were shot dead at the Rohini court complex in February and April 2017. In 2016, four gunmen barged into a fifth-floor courtroom in east Delhi and sprayed bullets, wounding an accused in the dock and killing a head constable.

In July this year, a 45-year-old man was shot dead outside an advocate’s chamber at the Dwarka court complex.

The Delhi police report to the Union home ministry. AAP parliamentarian Sanjay Singh tweeted: “Home minister @AmitShah where are you? Such a big incident in the capital of the country. Bullets echo in the temple of justice.”

An officer said Rahul and Moris were from Baghpat in Uttar Pradesh.

Student politics

Police sources said the rivalry between Gogi and Tillu dated back to their days in the Delhi University-affiliated Swami Shraddhanand College in Alipur, north Delhi.

Gogi and Tillu, from Alipur and Tajpur Kalan villages, respectively, on Delhi’s fringes, controlled student politics at the college from 2010 to 2015.

They also started extortion rackets and formed separate gangs. Over 10 members from their two gangs were killed in their clashes over the past six years, sources said.

Police said Gogi had been arrested by Haryana police but escaped from custody in 2016 and killed several of Tillu’s associates. He was arrested last year from Gurgaon.

In 2015, Gogi’s gang allegedly killed Deepak of Tillu’s gang, ostensibly to punish him for his romantic advances towards a cousin of Gogi.

In apparent retaliation, Arun alias “Commando” — an unsuccessful students’ union vice-presidential candidate in 2013 who was backed by Gogi — was killed.

Kuldeep Maan alias Fajja, who was killed by the police in March this year, was a student of Kirori Mal College and had been brought to Gogi’s gang by Arun, sources said.

Fajja, accused of committing a string of murders including that of Haryanvi singer Harshita Dahiya in 2017, had first been booked in 2013 for violence during the Shraddhanand College polls.

“Many youngsters from the villages of Delhi and those near the Haryana border still look up to these gangsters, who try to influence DU student politics. It was practically impossible for anyone to campaign there without their consent until recently,” a former DU student activist told The Telegraph.

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