 "Who is Pradeep Sharma, ex-Mumbai cop, who got life term in 2006 fake encounter case?")
Pradeep Sharma, former notorious ‘encounter specialist’ of Mumbai Police, has been convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in the 2006 fake encounter killing of Ramnarayan Gupta, alias Lakhan Bhaiya, an alleged member of the Chhota Rajan gang. The Bombay High Court on Tuesday (19 March) quashed Sharma’s acquittal by a sessions court, calling it “perverse” and “unsustainable”.
A division bench of Justices Revati Mohite-Dere and Gauri Godse ordered the ex-cop to surrender within three weeks. The court also upheld the life sentence awarded by the trial court to 13 others, including 12 police personnel, according to Live Law.
This is reportedly the first conviction of a police officer in an encounter case in Maharashtra.
Who is Pradeep Sharma? What is the Lakhan Bhaiya case? Let’s take a closer look.
Pradeep Sharma: Mumbai’s ‘encounter specialist’
Pradeep Sharma, also famous as ‘Mumbai’s Dirty Harry’, is alleged to have killed 112
criminals, including gangsters, underworld dons and terrorists, in his 25 years of service as a police officer, according to Deccan Herald (DH).
He is from the 1983 batch of the Maharashtra Police Academy, whose police officers were known for their crackdown on the Mumbai underworld led by dreaded figures such as Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar, Chhota Rajan, Arun Gawli, and Amar Naik at the time.
Sharma and his team were involved in the killing of Chhota Rajan’s aide Vinod Matkar – who was chosen to target Dawood Ibrahim in Pakistan – in 1999.
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More ShortsIn the same year, the cop allegedly killed D-Company gangster Sadiq Kalia in Mumbai’s Dadar area, as per a Hindustan Times (HT) report.
In 2003, Sharma, who was heading the Andheri Crime Intelligence Unit (CIU) at the time, and his team eliminated three Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorists in Goregaon.
Sharma courted a major controversy in 2008 when he was dismissed from service for his alleged links to the underworld and accusations of accumulating disproportionate wealth of over Rs 3,000 crore, as per Live Law.
He was reinstated a year later by the Maharashtra Administrative Tribunal. In 2010, Pradeep Sharma was arrested for the fake encounter of Lakhan Bhaiya. He was acquitted in 2013.
Four years later, he rejoined the police force and was appointed head of the Thane Police’s Anti-Extortion Cell, as per the HT report. He quit the police force in 2019 to take a plunge into politics. Sharma unsuccessfully contested the Assembly polls that year from Nalasopara in Mumbai on a Shiv Sena ticket.
In 2021, Sharma had a run-in with the law again when he was arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) regarding the murder of Thane resident Mansukh Hiran linked to the Antilia terror threat case. Sharma was granted bail by the Supreme Court last August.
Last month, the Income Tax (I-T) department carried out a raid on Sharma’s residence.
What is the Lakhan Bhaiya case?
On 11 November 2006, Lakhan Bhaiya, 33, was picked up with his friend, Anil Bheda, from Vashi. Hours later, the former was killed in a staged encounter near Versova in western Mumbai.
Lakhan Bhaiya’s brother – advocate Ramprasad Gupta – moved the Bombay High Court alleging that the encounter was “fake”. In 2009, an FIR was filed on the High Court’s order after a special investigation team (SIT) found that the policemen were paid by Lakhan Bhaiya’s rival to bump him off, reported Indian Express.
The SIT alleged the then senior inspector Pradeep Sharma had conspired with Lakhan Bhaiya’s disgruntled rival to kill him.
In July 2013, the sessions court awarded life term to 21 men, including 13 police personnel, for the murder. However, prime accused Pradeep Sharma was acquitted by the court citing a lack of evidence.
Of the 21 accused, two, a civilian and a police inspector, died in custody.
The prosecution and the victim’s brother Ramprasad filed an appeal in the High Court against Sharma’s acquittal, arguing that the encounter was staged and records were forged by the accused, reported Indian Express.
On Tuesday, the Bombay High Court convicted Sharma of murder and other charges. In its 867-page judgement, the court observed that the prosecution proved that Lakhan Bhaiya “was killed by the police, by trigger-happy cops, and the same was made to look like a genuine encounter”.
“All the circumstances led by the prosecution, right from the formation of the police squad, wrongful confinement, criminal abduction and fake encounter, has been proved,” Live Law cited the verdict as saying.
The Bombay High Court, on Tuesday, sentenced former Mumbai Police encounter specialist Pradeep Sharma to life imprisonment while upholding the life imprisonment awarded to 13 others, including 12 police personnel, in the case of the fake encounter killing of Lakhan Bhaiya in… pic.twitter.com/6lYR19MpDn
— Live Law (@LiveLawIndia) March 19, 2024
The bench said the trial court “had overlooked the overwhelming evidence available against Sharma. The common chain of evidence unerringly proves his involvement in the case”.
The court upheld the life term of 12 other policemen – Dilip Palande, Nitin Sartape, Ganesh Harpude, Anand Patade, Prakash Kadam, Devidas Sakpal, Pandurang Kokam, Ratnakar Kamble, Sandeep Sardar, Tanaji Desai, Pradeep Suryavanshi and Vinayak Shinde – and a civilian, Hitesh Solanki, in the case, reported Indian Express.
Six others were, however, acquitted.
The High Court noted that though Lakhan Bhaiya had 10 cases against him, this did not give the accused the “license to kill” him.
“Instead of upholding the rule of law, the police have misused their position and uniform, and have killed Ramnarayan in cold blood,” the bench said, as per the Indian Express report_._
It further said that “death in police custody must be curbed with a heavy hand and must be viewed seriously” and there can be “no room for leniency as persons involved are the arm of state whose duty is to protect citizens and not to take law into their hands”.
The division bench also lamented the “gruesome” death of the prime witness Anil Bheda, days before his deposition in 2011, calling it a “shame” and a “travesty of justice”. The court said it hoped Bheda’s culprits would be brought to book.
With inputs from agencies
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