Gang wars plague Udaipur

JAIPUR: The City of Lakes or Udaipur, where the dreaded criminal Bhanu Pratap Singh was lodged at Central Jail, is fast becoming infamous for its gruesome gang wars. Singh was gunned down at Bijolia village in Bhilwara early this week. He was into many violent confrontations with various gangs during his court proceedings also when he was on bail.It was not the first time when a rival gang attacked acriminal for revenge as Udaipur has a history of suchincidents.According to Udaipur police records, the city suffers fromvarious crimes, including extortion of the marble industry, drug peddling andillegal trafficking of liquor. Worse, gang wars were seen since2004.Sohrabuddin Sheikh and Tulsi Prajapati, who were gunned down bypolice in an encounter, had brutally murdered one Hameed Lala on December 21,2004 at Hathipole Circle in Udaipur."Both were in touch with one Azam Khan who was extorting money from a marble businessmen. Hameed Lala had provided support to the businessmen and prevented the extortion. Thus, it was a clear gang war in which Lala died in indiscriminate firing," recalled a senior police officer posted at Udaipur when this attack took place on a Saturday. Police sources add that despite this, the relative of Hameed Lalawho had lodged an FIR, did not named Sheikh and Tusli but their names werementioned almost four days after the murder. Recalling otherincidents, an Udaipur police officer, said, "In 2003 one notorious criminalKailash Jain was brutally murdered and his body was dumped thereafter."Asked about the increasing number of gang wars in Udaipur city, asenior officer said, "One reason for this is dreaded criminals from Kota,Jhalwar, and Bundi have been shifted to jails in Udaipur. We have written to thedirector general (jails) to keep the criminals and undertrials to the jails inthe districts from where they were nabbed and have denied many suchshiftings.In 1986 a terrorist from Punjab who was lodged at Udaipurjail had fired at the police control room, Udaipur. The terrorists HarjinderSingh alias Zinda and Sukhvinder Singh alias Sukhi, along with six otherassailants had attacked police control room in which the then deputy SP RoshanLal Mathur and Rajendra Singh, SHO, Jhadol police station, were killed.