A wanted criminal in Meerut ended up with a bullet lodged below his knee after he allegedly opened fire on a police team that had signalled him to stop, and he was arrested within minutes of the shootout.
A routine checkpoint turns into a shootout
The confrontation began during a joint checking drive by the Railway Road police station and the surveillance cell at the Jamania Bagh crossing, where officers were screening suspicious vehicles and pedestrians passing through the area. Such checks are typically carried out to catch criminals moving through busy junctions on unregistered vehicles, since a bike without a number plate is far harder to trace back to its owner or its true origin. While the checking was underway, the team received specific information that a man riding a motorcycle without a number plate was waiting near the railway station with the intention of robbing passengers as they stepped out after their journey.
When officers spotted the rider matching that description and signalled him to pull over, he instead tried to turn the bike around and flee the spot. In doing so, he lost control of the motorcycle and skidded onto the road. He is accused of then firing at the police team on foot. Officers returned fire, and a bullet struck him below the knee on his left leg, bringing his escape attempt to an abrupt end.
Accused identified as a Rs 5,000 bounty criminal
The injured man was identified as 34-year-old Danish, son of Liyaqat, a resident of Maqbara Diggi, which falls under the Railway Road police station area. After securing his arrest, the police team sent him to P L Sharma District Hospital in Meerut for treatment of his gunshot wound. Investigators said Danish was already wanted in a case registered in Jaipur, Rajasthan, and carried an announced reward of Rs 5,000 for information leading to his capture.
Unnumbered KTM traced back to a Delhi theft
A search at the spot led to the recovery of a.315 bore country-made pistol, along with one live cartridge and one spent cartridge shell, from the accused's possession. The black KTM motorcycle he had been riding, which carried no number plate, was also seized. When police ran checks on the vehicle, it turned out to have been stolen from within the limits of the Sarai Rohilla police station in Delhi, meaning Danish had allegedly been using a stolen vehicle from another state to move around Meerut without drawing attention.
A criminal record spanning four states
Police records show that this was far from Danish's first brush with the law. He is named as an accused in a combined nineteen cases registered across Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, covering charges ranging from theft and robbery to assault and possession of illegal weapons. That spread across four states suggests a pattern of moving between jurisdictions, which can make it harder for any single police force to track a repeat offender consistently. With the arrest now made and the weapon and stolen bike both recovered, officers said further legal action against Danish is being taken forward under the applicable laws.
