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| India-Pakistan |
| Encounter Specialist Pradeep Sharma reinstated by Mumbai Police |
| 2009-05-07 |
| A police officer credited with gunning down 112 gangsters was Thursday given his job back, nine months after he was sacked on charges of extorting millions of dollars from the underworld. Mumbai police inspector Pradeep Sharma was cleared of charges that he had amassed Rs 300 crore from MumbaiÂ’s thriving underworld during his 25 years in service. The 48-year-old officer earned the nickname 'encounter specialist' for shooting 112 alleged criminals but was sacked last August after his superiors accused him of joining hands with Mumbai's crime syndicates, officials said. Sharma, who was also linked to India's most-wanted gangster Dawood Ibrahim, denied the allegations. Officials said a state justice tribunal in Maharashtra, of which Mumbai is the capital, rejected the charges and ordered the reinstatement of Sharma into the city police department. |
| Posted by:john frum |
| #4 Previously, on "Encounter Specialist"... Yer a dinosaur, Sharma! A rogue cop! An I'm gonna run you outta the department! You n' what army, chief... |
| Posted by: tu3031 2009-05-07 17:20 |
| #3 with unblinking conviction, Sharma denies any of his 103 hits were in cold-blood. “They fired at me. I fired in self-defence. They had weapons. Obviously they were not going to a temple,” he says. Sharma’s reward for being an “encounter specialist”, a term used for the bunch of quick-draw cops, is a life of constant danger, including for his family. “I am like a World Cup for the mafia gangs. Each one of them wants me dead,” Sharma says while suddenly turning the wrong up a one-way street on a muggy spring afternoon. “I have to do this — enter no-entry zones, one-way streets, jump red lights to dodge them. They could be waiting anywhere. But they can never get me,” he says, scanning the streets for that lone gunman who could make his day. Sharma’s exploits are fodder for Bollywood movies along the lines of Clint Eastwood’s “Dirty Harry”. “How quick are you with it?” I ask, pointing to the gun tucked under his thigh. In a flash he has pulled out the weapon and is aiming into the street through the windscreen. “This quick!” Sharma boasts in true cowboy style. “It’s a good revolver. It doesn’t have a locking mechanism — always loaded, always ready for action.” things were changing as Sharma and his fellow ‘encounter specialists’ — Praful Bhosle, Vijay Salaskar, Ravinder Agre and Daya Naik — got to work on their assignment to tackle the growing bands of armed criminals. Each one of them has killed dozens of gangsters, yet the squad has never suffered any casualties. After a decade of hot pursuit, the gangsters’ guns are falling silent in Bombay as shootings have dramatically reduced from three to four a month to two to three in a year. “The gangs of Bombay are now on the run,” Sharma says with a chuckle. And for Sharma, Sunday’s are the most boring days of the week. “At any given time, I have 10 to 12 ‘files’ of hardened criminals open in my mind. It’s an addiction. I feel bored on Sundays because the family keeps me at home,” Sharma says. He always aims to kill. “The top half of the body,” he says in reply to a question over where he aims when confronting a suspected gangster. |
| Posted by: john frum 2009-05-07 17:15 |
| #2 |
| Posted by: john frum 2009-05-07 16:44 |
| #1 This week on "Encounter Specialist"... Sharma! Your gun and your badge! You're through! I'll be back. You can count on it... |
| Posted by: tu3031 2009-05-07 16:28 |