A 42-year-old fugitive gangster of the Naveen Khati gang was arrested by the Crime Branch on Sunday, the police said.
The accused has been identified as Narender, who was wanted in the Najafgarh murder case of 2010. He along with Naveen Khati and other associates had shot dead one Pardeep Kumar at Balmiki Chowk to induce fear of their gang in the area. This, in turn, resulted in a gang war between Naveen Khati and Ravinder. The gang war has claimed a dozen lives till now.
Khati had already been arrested by Crime Branch along with his associates, while Narender was absconding for the past eight years and a cash reward of Rs 25,000 was declared on his arrest. Narender was currently working as a cab driver by adopting his brother's name. He was previously involved in several cases of murder, carjacking, robbery and theft, Ajit Kumar Singla, additional CP (Crime) said.
A Dwarka Crime Branch team had received an information that Narender was living in the Shyam Vihar and would come to oversee the construction work of his house in the same area. This information was developed and a trap was laid near an expected place of his arrival and the accused was apprehended. On interrogation, Narender confessed to his involvement in the crime. Subsequently, he was arrested under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code.
On sustained interrogation, Narender revealed that he belonged to a lower middle-class family had studied up to class 7. He started working as a driver at a young age. He was fascinated with expensive cars and to fulfil his desires, he started stealing cars. He used to take the stolen cars for joyrides and abandon them later. He wanted to impress women with new cars every week.
During his jail term, he met Manoj Rathi and Ashok Kali and got influenced by them and soon started robbing cars with them. He was arrested for robbery and was locked up in the same cell as that of Naveen Khati, who was serving sentence for murder and robbery cases. Naveen lured him to join his gang and offered him to look after his cable network and manage finances for his gang once he gets released. Soon he climbed up the ranks in the gang and became second to Naveen Khati in his gang. He used to manage the recruitment of young members in the gang.
