Man wanted for shooting at lawyer held with 2 aides in central Delhi

The lawyer had suffered a bullet injury to his right thigh while his nephew was stabbed in back in the attack allegedly committed by Sohaib and his seven to eight associates.

New Delhi: A 23-year-old man, absconding for over a month after allegedly shooting at a lawyer in east Delhi’s Trilokpuri, was arrested along with his two associates from near Gandhi Smarak bus stop on the Ring Road in central Delhi late Thursday night, police said on Sunday.

Sohaib is registered as a habitual offender and has been previously involved in seven cases, police said.

An illegal “made in Italy” pistol with a magazine loaded with three cartridges, five spare cartridges, and two scooters, one of them stolen from Sunlight Colony police station’s jurisdiction earlier this month, were recovered from them, said officials.

Police identified the arrested as Sohaib alias Ajju,23, Majid,24 (both single names), and Mohammad Anees alias Sonu, 36.

Sohaib and Majid live in Trilokpuri, and Anees resides in Chandni Chowk in central Delhi. Sohaib was wanted in the firing and attempted murder case involving a lawyer that was registered on January 25, said officials.

The 32-year-old lawyer, Nitin Hastoriya, had suffered a bullet injury to his right thigh while his nephew, Vishal (single name),21, was stabbed in back in the attack allegedly committed by Sohaib and his seven to eight associates. The attack took place over an enmity, the police said.

Sohaib is registered as a habitual offender at the Mayur Vihar police station and has been previously involved in seven cases, the police added.

Deputy commissioner of police (central) Rohit Rajbir Singh said that on March 5 (Thursday), the special staff team of central district police received information that notorious criminal Sohaib, who usually carried an illegal firearm and was wanted in an attempt to murder case of Mayur Vihar police station, would come to meet his associates near Rose Garden on the Ring Road around 11pm.

“Accordingly, a trap was laid near gate number 2 of Gandhi Smarak Nidhi. Three suspects arrived on two scooters around 11pm. All three, including Sohaib, were caught and their searches resulted in the recovery of an illegal “made in Italy” pistol with a magazine loaded with three bullets, five spare bullets and a stolen scooter. The other two were Majid and Mohammad Anees,” DCP Singh added.