In a bid to instill fear among his targets, dreaded gangster Neeraj Bawana used to bring his extortion victims to his den and shoot at a human sketch drawn on a wall in a demonstration of what would happen if they failed to meet his demand.
Twenty-seven-year-old Bawana was arrested by the Special Cell of Delhi Police in the wee hours of yesterday from Main Rohtak Road, along with his associate Mohd Rashid Khan alias Guddu, following a brief encounter.
Police had been trailing him for long as he criss-crossed several states. Bawana had even rented a flat in Kolkata and opened a bank account with fake identity as he wanted to procure passport to be able to travel abroad, he has revealed during interrogation.
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"There is a factory belonging to a politician who is Bawana's maternal uncle in outer Delhi. On the first floor of this factory which manufactures tyres of kid's bike, there is a hall where Bawana used to bring his victims and in a bid to instill fear in and extort money from them, he did target practice with a human sketch drawn on a wall," said a senior police officer associated with the probe.
According to police, his henchmen used to collect "Neeraj Tax" from bookies, hoteliers, traders, dealers and factory owners from the area.
"He had rented a flat in Diamond City, Alipur Road in Kolkata in the name of Suraj S/O of Prem Singh, a resident of Bardhaman in West Bengal. He had also opened a bank account with the same fake identity in a local branch of Bank of India and was planning to procure a passport to be able to travel abroad," he said.
Bawana, who had at least 40 cases pending against him, was also planning to free two of his close associates - Naveen Bali and Amit Shukla - from Tihar jail, police claimed. Both of them have been in Tihar Jail for years and have also been accused of making extortion calls from inside the jail.
"Bali is a resident of Sultanpur Dabas while Shukla hails from Malad, Mumbai. Bali has previously been involved in 14 cases. Bawana wanted to bring them out of jail and was waiting to strike when both of them would have been brought out of jail for any court hearing," the officer added.
In a similar operation, his gang had recently played a key role in the escape of Amit alias Bhura, who was freed from the custody of Uttarakhand Police while he was being produced at Baghpat court and even snatched a rifle and carbines from the police team.
Police said his gang members used to go to associations of industrialists in the area and extort money from one pretext or the other like organizing a pooja, a wrestler's tournament etc.
