Police nab member of gang suspected of killing 250

Meerut/Lucknow, Mar 29 (UNI) The Special Operations Group (SOG) of Meerut Police today arrested a man suspected to be a member of a 50-strong gang that specialised in stealing vehicles and killing passengers for valuables.

SSP (Meerut) Deepesh Juneja told reporters in the Western UP district that the gang has so far killed 250 people, including 50 policemen.

While Salim Qureshi has confessed to killing at least five persons, police claimed the gang was involved in the killing of at least 250 innocents in the recent past.

Acting on a tip-off, the SOG arrested Salim from near a petrol pump in Meerut and recovered a mobile phone and papers of a stolen pick up truck. He was zeroed in using electronic surveillence based on the mobile phone of a medical representative he was carrying. The MR was one of the victims, Juneja added.

Explaining the modus operandi of the gang, the SSP said the gangsters used the stolen vehicles as maxi cabs outside railway stations and bus stands.

Sources in SOG, meanwhile, said the victims included 50 policemen.

''The gang used to take away their identity cards and other documents so that police does not begin investigations on a large scale to hunt for killers of their colleagues.

Gullible passengers were made to sit in the middle while other gangsters, posing as passengers, used to occupy seats on either sides. The gangsters sitting on the rear seats used to later strangulate the passenger with a 'gamcha' (towel) and dump his body on highways and decamp with valuables.

The police said like Salim, the kingpin Ali Ahmed also belonged to Bahraich district. Ahmed had recentlyu escaped from police custody and was still at large.

The gang operates in Varanasi, West UP and Central UP in teams of seven to ten men. Salim was the leader of one such team of goons They also denied reports that Salim was a serial killer per se.

''He is a member of an organised gang which kills people for valuables,''officials said.

UNI