Delhi cops nab gangster by setting up ‘honey trap’ on Instagram
The police impersonated a Mumbai-based model and invited the gangster, Manoj Kumar, to a meeting in Safdarjung, south Delhi, on Tuesday and subsequently, arrested him
NEW DELHI
In a reversal of the usual dynamic, Delhi Police arrested a wanted member of the Gogi gang by “honey trapping” him. The police impersonated a Mumbai-based model and invited the gangster, Manoj Kumar, to a meeting in Safdarjung, south Delhi, on Tuesday and subsequently, arrested him.
An officer aware of the matter said that two head constables posted with the crime branch, identified by their single names as Dinesh and Sukhbir, found Kumar active on Instagram and contacted him last December. “The officers saw this as an opportunity and created a fake account of a Mumbai-based model on Instagram. They posted a few photos of the model as well to make it look real,” the officer, not wishing to be named, said.
“After a few conversations over the next few days, he believed that it was indeed a woman. In the past three months, he often asked the ‘model’ to video call but the officials dodged it saying that ‘she’ was with her boyfriend or in a situation where she could not answer,” the officer said, adding they decided to make the arrest this week.
Two pistols and eight live cartridges were recovered from his possession. Police said Kumar was a proclaimed offender and two non-bailable warrants were issued against him in cases lodged under the Arms Act.
Kumar, a resident of Nangloi, is a life convict and a parole jumper in an abduction-murder case in 2005. He is also an associate of Deepak Tittar, who allegedly orchestrated the murder of gangster Tillu Tajpuria in Tihar Jail, deputy commissioner of police (crime branch) Aditya Gautam said.
According to police, Kumar and his friend Chamanlal in 2005 abducted and killed a rival for not paying them, and he was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2013. While he was lodged in Tihar Jail, he came in contact with Vicky Ramzanpur, an active member of the Gogi gang. Another gangster Deepak Tittar, also used to visit them in jail.
In 2014, Kumar secured a one-month parole, during which he absconded and joined the Gogi gang with Tittar’s help. Soon after, he and his associates killed a person in Shahbad Dairy, stole multiple cars from Narela, Begumpur and Alipur, and used them in crimes, police said.
In December 2015, he was arrested along with his associates, but in June 2023, he was released on a three-week parole and absconded again. He committed multiple car robberies in Rajasthan, and was caught by the state police. He remained at Bilada Jail until December 2024 but deceived the jail authorities about his criminal history.
