As many as 128 members of three criminal gangs have been booked under the Gangsters Act, officials said on Monday, as the police and the administration in Gautam Buddh Nagar initiated proceedings to attach their properties in a bid to choke their finances.
The action comes in the wake of a police analysis of Sundar Bhati, Randeep Bhati and Anil Dujana gangs which concluded that they have outgrown their traditional approach and were now working like a "holding firm with subsidiaries in crime sector".
Three fresh FIRs under the UP Gangsters and Anti-Social Activities (Prevention) Act, 1986 have been registered against 54 members of the Sunder Bhati gang, 40 members of the Randeep Bhati gang and 33 members of the Anil Dujana Gang, officials said.
District Magistrate Brajesh Narain Singh said, "In pursuance of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's instructions, the administration has approved proceedings under the Gangsters Act against these criminal elements."
Stating that Noida and Greater Noida, the industrial hub bordering Delhi, "have an investment of around Rs 80,000 crore" and big projects like Jewar airport are underway, Singh added such an action, a first of its kind, was necessary to rein in "organised crimes".
Senior Superintendent of Police Vaibhav Krishna told reporters that the police are seized of multiple cases about the involvement of these gangs in illegal activities like extortion from business houses, contract killings, forcibly taking contracts of construction activities, supplying building materials, water, transportation, labour, and collecting scrap.
They are also engaged in extortion at toll plazas, grabbing disputed properties, forcibly taking parking contracts and extortion from them, threatening prosecution witnesses, Krishna told reporters.
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He said Satveer Singh, a police constable currently posted in Ballia, has also been identified as a member of the Sunder Bhati gang and has been booked.
"While in the past also there have been Gangsters Act cases registered against some of these accused, they were primarily incident-centric. These Gangsters Act cases registered yesterday have tried to cover the whole gamut of illegal activities these criminals are involved in extortion from business houses, contract killings, etc," he added.
"In near future, their properties under section 14(1) of the Gangsters Act will be attached and arrests would be made at large scale. The objective is to not only keep them behind bars but also to keep their illegal economic activities under check," Krishna said.
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