Killer Saleem is finally behind bars

Vipin Agnihotri

The success of a criminal is ultimately his own failure. Saleem is no different and even though he might have committed more than 250 murders it was his continuous success that made him commit more murders and finally to his arrest. His modus operandi was simple. Offer lift or nominally paid transport to the passengers in need and then have them sandwiched between his two accomplices only to be strangulated and looted.

He is described as Uttar Pradesh's most notorious criminal till date. He is said to have killed more than 250 people after robbing them. He would dump the bodies of his victims on the road. With his arrest, the Meerut police claim to have got the beast that was on the prowl for a long time.

They say it is virtually impossible to track down a criminal who operates on his own. The more the accomplices, the higher are the chances that a weak link in the chain can be made to break. Things add up and the case gets solved eventually. This story isn't from the league of Jack the Ripper. The criminal acts of greed and gore are spine chilling, nonetheless.

A now-apprehended criminal, Saleem, son of Samad and resident of Baharaich, belongs to a gang of 35 hardcore criminals. The headcount of his 'kills' is a shocking 250.

Before being caught, Saleem had developed a time-tested method of going about his business. He would park his jeep outside a bus stop or railway station. He would then offer his services to drive passengers to their destination for free or a negligible fare. If they agreed, the passengers were made to sit at the rear seats sandwiched between two of Saleem's other gang members.

After driving the gullible hikers to a lonely spot, their belongings would be looted and then they would be strangulated to death. The gang operated in and around Gorakhpur, Meerut, Kanpur, Faizabad, Bahraich, Varansi, Mathura, Aligarh and Lucknow.

On February 14, Saleem along with his five gang members - Ali Ahmad, Aaizaz, Salaru and Raja - offered a 'joyride' to one Ashok Kumar who was later identified as a junior engineer with the State owned Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation Limited, and one Rajiv Kumar, an Area Manager with a pharmaceutical company. The gang approached the duo waiting at the bus stop at Hapur.

Finding a transport so late at night as godsend, Ashok and Rajiv got into the jeep. Half way through, however, the cruel truth unfolded. Saleem first told them that the fare would be Rs 20, much higher than the rate generally charged by any State owned bus.

Vehement protests by the commuters had to follow. That turned into jostling after which, before the approach to Meerut, Saleem killed both the passengers with a rope that was always kept in the jeep. They then threw the bodies in a ditch alongside the link road to Narheta, diverting from the main Meerut-Hapur road. The gang then looted all their belongings including their mobile phone.

Ashok and Rajiv were not the only ill-fated ones that night. The criminals thirsted for more. After having killed Ashok and Rajiv, Saleem's gang reached Meerut. Saleem offered lift to PD Sharma, an assistant engineer with the Irrigation department in Uttar Pradesh, and killed him on Hapur-Gulaothi road under Hafizpur police station of Ghaziabad and threw his body in the bushes after looting all his belongings. They then went back to Bahraich.

Saleem's crime chart dates back several years. By 2006, he had perfected the above modus operandi. When one crime after another is accomplished, and the criminal moves scot-free, it encourages him to repeat the 'feat' - that is how criminals see their crime. And then the criminal dares a bit more with every passing crime.

He looks for 'high-value targets'. Junior commissioned officer Subedar Dharam Pal Singh posted at Leh - just like a few other men from the Army and police and their kin - had to be a victim of such criminal fancy.

It was December 2006. The gang offered the Subedar a cab service from Saharanpur and killed him when he was on his way home. His body was dumped near Mudali police station area in Meerut.

Earlier, in October 2006, the gang had offered their 'service' to one Som Nath Tripathi, a relative of IG (Police) BP Singh, and killed him. His body was found next to a road under the Arnia police station of Aligarh.

The gang had also killed an RPF constable from the Singra police station of Varanasi. The investigation of the case is still on. No one managed to escape the clutches of the gang except one Nagendra Saingar.

Like all other victims of the Saleem gang, Saingar was offered taxi service at Hathras. They tried to kill him near Sasni. But Saingar, leaving all his belongings behind, managed to jump out of the moving vehicle near Hanuman Chowk before Aligarh and managed to escape. "He is the only one whom the gang could not kill," says investigating officer Pawan Sharma.

The gang used to hire jeeps from travel agents for Rs 450 to Rs 500 a day. The passengers would be made to sit between two gang members with one right across him. Once they would reach a secluded place, they would strangulate them.

The gang's honcho, Ali Ahmad, son of Jumman Qureshi, again a resident of Bahraich, carries a cash reward of Rs 50,000 on his head. He is a proclaimed offender having escaped from the Bahraich police station.

Killing Rajiv and Ashok this February proved to be the gang's nemesis. The victims' family members filed an FIR. In the complaint, they also mentioned that the mobile phones were missing. The police swung into action and the case was assigned to the Special Operation Group of Meerut Police.

Pawan Sharma set up a mobile surveillance and laid a trap. After a few near misses, the police were able to catch the culprit. It was then confession time for Saleem.

In a Press conference recently, SSP Meerut produced killer Saleem before media persons. Under sustained interrogation, Saleem revealed the names of the other hardcore members of his gang: Nissar, Gufran, Ahsan, Pawan Patwa, Muslim, Umar, Mumrar, Mamu, Bhujwa, Pintoo Kana, Maksood and Kasim.

During the crime verification, Sharma said Saleem had a long history of crime. There are nine cases of heinous crime against him in different police stations of Meerut, Bahraich, Lucknow, Kanpur, Mathura and Gorakhpur. Four of the arrests were, however, carried out in Maharashtra where a few of the gang members had fled. Saleem was arrested by Meerut Police. The four gangsters caught in Maharashtra are: Vinod Raja, Siraz Ahmad alias Raju and Pappoo alias Mohd Azab and Dalip. They reportedly confessed their involvements in the murders committed at Meerut.

It was in 1998 that Saleem first met Aijaz, son of Imdad and resident of Nazirpura of Bahraich. It was with him that he initially took to petty crime for which he was jailed. Saleem met with a certain Umar in Kanpur jail, who was by then already a dreaded criminal, carrying a cash reward of Rs 50,000 on his head. Saleem and Umar decided to have a gang of their own while they were both lodged in jail.

As of now, most of the gang members are on the run. As for the cars that they used, the gold coloured Mahindra Max is at the Chinhat police station of Lucknow, and the white Marshal jeep, which was confiscated at Chakari police station, is in Kanpur. Another jeep, a white coloured Marshal, is in police custody at the Dargah Sharief police station of Bahraich. Yet another jeep is with the Kotwali Dehat at Bahraich. This in addition to several other jeeps that are in police custody in different police stations of Uttar Pradesh.

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