Wednesday, 05 July 2023 | PNS | DEHRADUN 

Uttarakhand Special Task Force (STF) has arrested Furqan, the main accused of the gang who had opened fire at two Cheetah Police personnel in Haridwar on October 10, 2022. The accused, with the help of his wife, had also tried to mislead authorities by portraying that he has committed suicide to prevent their investigation against him, said the senior superintendent of police, STF, Ayush Agrawal. He said that last year, the police received information on October 10 that three suspicious men were reportedly roaming in the Laksar area with the intention of robbing a jewellery store.

He said that two personnel of Cheetah Police reached the spot and started questioning those men when they suddenly started shooting at them with the intention to kill. One personnel was shot in the leg who sustained serious injury. “One of the personnel caught a man while the other two started escaping in a bike which was parked ahead with other two suspicious men. A second team of Cheetah police started chasing them when the gang again opened fire on them and escaped. Another personnel got shot in the leg during this encounter with criminals,” said Agrawal. He said that the police had arrested three accused but the main culprits- Zakir and Furqan, who shot at the police were still at large.

The police headquarters also put a bounty of Rs one lakh on the head of these criminals. He said that STF worked quite strategically in the case for the past three months as the accused were shrewd and did not use any mobile phones even to contact their families which made it quite difficult for teams to trace their digital footprint. The SSP said, “Most of the evidence gathered in this investigation is through manual policing. Our teams went to several states including Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi to search for the absconding gang members.

The STF received information a few days ago that the main accused Phurkan is hiding in Bihar. The team reached Bhagalpur district of Bihar 10 days ago and gathered information about him. The team members were keeping an eye on possible places where Furqan could be found by disguising themselves as labourer and delivery. He was finally nabbed on June 2. The STF has taken his transit remand for six days as per court directions.“