Madhya Pradesh cop killings: Third accused gunned down, two on the run

BHOPAL: Madhya Pradesh Police on Tuesday claimed to have gunned down another blackbuck poacher accused of killing three policemen in Aron village of Guna district last week from the Dharnavada-Bharoli area. With this, police said three accused have so far been killed and four others arrested. Two more accused in the case are on the run.
Police said the accused wanted to escape to Rajasthan.
Superintendent of police, Guna, Rajiv Mishra told reporters that the encounter took place in a forest near Haripura village early on Tuesday in which one of the accused identified as Chhotu Pathan, 30, was killed.
Mishra said police had information about the accused hiding in the Ruthiyai area last night and a team tasked with search operation confronted him in the forest near Haripura early morning hours. However, when asked to surrender, Pathan opened fire on the police team with a country made pistol. He got killed in the retaliatory firing, the SP said.
In the exchange of fire, a police constable named Vinod Dhakad was injured while some stray bullets also hit the police vehicle, he said.
On May 14, three policemen were killed after a group of poachers, opened fire on them near Saga Barkheda village, some 60 km from Guna district headquarters while the police party tried to stop them from fleeing with blackbuck meat.
Soon after the incident police sealed Bidoria village, where the accused lived, and carried out a house-to-house search. The bullet-ridden body of one of the accused Naushad Khan, 35, was recovered during the search. He was killed in retaliatory firing by police and his accomplices had dragged the body to the village.Another accused, identified as Shahzad Khan, 38, was killed in an encounter with police the same day.
On Monday, a father-son duo, identified as Nisar Khan, 70, and his son Shahraj Khan, 52, residents of Bidhoria village, were arrested and a Insas service rifle snatched from the deceased policemen was recovered from them, Mishra said.