It was an “operation” like never before. The residents of Khoda Colony, Ghaziabad were in for a shock on Tuesday afternoon when
they found SSP Ghaziabad and SSP Gautam Budh Nagar jointly raiding the colony after receiving “specific inputs” that some of NCR’s most wanted criminals were hiding in the area. After a three-hour long operation, the UP police arrested six persons and detained another dozen.
One of the arrested, Jeetender alias Jeetu, is allegedly involved in several dacoity cases in Ghaziabad. “A huge catchment of ammunitions was recovered from the colony,” said senior police officers.
According to sources in the UP police, the state police had recently decided to carry out joint operations at specific places in order to nab criminals who created trouble in one district or Delhi and then escaped to another district. “The Khoda Colony raid was the first in this regard,” SSP (Ghaziabad) Akhil Kumar said.
UP police sources said the raid team included Akhil Kumar, SSP of Ghaziabad, Ashok Kumar, SSP of Gautam Budh Nagar, six SPs, 15 DSPs and over two dozen station chiefs from the two districts.”As part of our plan, the two SSPs, along with their team, entered the colony from two different sides,” said the officer.
Other senior police officers in the team included SP (city) Rahul Yadavendu, SP (rural) Asthana and SP (crime) Ram Kishore.
“The operation began at 3pm. We arrested many people from the Himalaya Enclave and Shankar Vihar. Besides Jeetender, we arrested other criminals like Pawan and Manoj Bhandana,” said a senior police officer.
According to sources, the entire area was surrounded by a huge police force to cut out all escape routes. “Jeetender even tried hiding inside a double bed but we arrested him even after facing resistance from his acquaintances,” claimed the officers.
The police said that several such raids will be carried out in the near future. “We will form the raiding parties based on the intelligence inputs that we receive,” the officer said.
