Ex-cop Pradeep Sharma receives life term for 2006 Mumbai fake encouter

Pradeep Sharma: Former Mumbai Police encounter specialist Pradeep Sharma was handed a life sentence by the Bombay High Court on Tuesday. This comes in connection with the killing of Ramnarayan Gupta, also known as Lakhan Bhaiyya, a member of the Chhota Rajan gang, in an alleged fake encounter back in 2006.

Sharma, aged 62, received the sentence 11 years after he was acquitted by a Mumbai court in connection with the killing of Lakhan Bhaiya near Nana Nani Park in Versova.

Here are seven points to know about Pradeep Sharma

1. Pradeep Sharma belongs to the illustrious 1983 police class that also included Ravindra Angre, Vijay Salaskar, Praful Bhosle, and Vinayak Saude. These policemen were renowned for dismantling the Mumbai underworld during that period, which was headed by people like Arun Gawli, Chhota Rajan, Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar, Amar Naik, and others.
2. In 1999, Sharma and his team members fatally shot Vinod Matkar, an associate of Chhota Rajan, who had been chosen by the don to carry out Ibrahim’s elimination in Pakistan. During the same year, the officer also eliminated D-Company gangster Sadiq Kalia in Dadar, Mumbai.
3. In 2003, Sharma and his team took down three suspected Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) terrorists in Mumbai’s Goregaon area. Among them, two were Pakistani nationals named Abu Sultan and Abu Anwar.
4. Sharma has faced his fair share of controversies, including being dismissed from service in August 2008 over alleged links to the underworld. Yet, he was reinstated in May 2009 pursuant to directives from the Maharashtra Administrative Tribunal.
5. In 2010, Pradeep Sharma was arrested for the alleged staged encounter of Rajan gang member Ramnarayan Gupta, also known as Lakhan Bhaiya, in November 2006. Following a four-year stint in jail, he was acquitted in 2013.
6. In 2017, he was reinstated and took on the role of heading the Anti-Extortion Cell within the Thane Police. However, he resigned from this position in July 2019 to join the unified Shiv Sena. Subsequently, he ran for the assembly elections from Nalasopara in Mumbai but was unsuccessful.
7. In 2021, Sharma was arrested for the second time by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) when his name emerged in connection with the Antilia explosives scare and the Mansukh Hiran murder case.

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