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Odisha gangster killed in police encounter while being shifted to one jail from another
A gangster serving a life sentence in two cases of murder and accused in several other criminal cases, including that of extortion, was killed in police firing while trying to flee on his way to jail on Saturday afternoon, officials said
A gangster serving a life sentence in two cases of murder and accused in several other criminal cases, including that of extortion, was killed in police firing while trying to flee on his way to jail on Saturday afternoon, officials said.
Sheikh Hyder, 60, serving sentence in a murder case and accused in several other cases, was being shifted to a jail in Baripada town of Odisha’s Mayurbhanj district in a police van from Choudwar circle jail. At around 3.20 pm, he asked the cops to stop as he wanted to use the toilet.
“After getting down from the police van at Simulia, he tried to snatch the gun from the sub-inspector and flee. To control the situation, the escort team opened fire on him. One bullet hit him in the stomach and another in the leg. He was then rushed to the district headquarters hospital in Balasore. He succumbed to his bullet injuries in Balasore district headquarters hospital,” said Bhubaneswar-Cuttack police commissioner Soumendra Priyadarshi.
Additional district medical officer (ADMO), Balasore district, Mrutyunjay Mishra said Hyder had arrived at the casualty wing of Balasore district headquarter hospital in a critical and ‘gasping condition’. “He died within four to five minutes upon arrival. The post-mortem will make it clear how many bullet injuries did he receive,” he said. The post mortem is likely to be conducted on Sunday.
In April this year, Hyder, serving a life sentence in a case of murder, escaped from a government medical college cum hospital in Odisha after drugging the policeman in charge of his security. He was arrested 5 days later from Sangareddy district of Telangana.
Accusing the police of staging a fake encounter, Hyder’s wife Haseena said usually during a police encounter a criminal gets bullet injuries in the legs and not on the head or the abdomen.
“Police took my husband out of the jail and killed him mid-way claiming that he made escape attempts. The jailor and others were involved in the killing. In Odisha, cops always fire at the knee, not at the heart or the head,” she alleged.
Demanding justice for her husband, Haseena said she was not aware of the shifting of her husband from Choudwar jail to Baripada jail. “For 16 years my husband was lodged in jail and every time I cooperated with the police. Even when he escaped from the jail custody in April this year, I fully cooperated with the cops,” she said.
Former Odisha DGP Sanjeev Marik demanded a probe into the encounter and questioned the manner in which the criminal was shot. “Was he handcuffed and chained in the waist while being taken to Baripada jail from the Chowudwar jail?” he asked.
Hyder was a renowned name in Odisha’s underworld in the late 90s due to his ability to execute crimes. In the 1980s, he started out as a rickshaw puller in Kendrapara town and later worked as a truck driver. He soon got involved in petty thefts and formed a gang with two other criminals Syed Usman Ali alias Tito and Suleiman.
In 2005, he became a known name in the underworld after killing Sk Chuna, brother of his friend-turned-foe Suleiman. He was arrested from Nagpur for the murder and was awarded life imprisonment in 2011. However, he got out on parole and with the help of Tito, he got Suleiman, the most educated among the three, shot dead on a road in 2012. Hyder and Tito, however, soon fell out and bayed for each other’s blood.
Hyder was again arrested and was later sentenced to life in 2015 over the kidnapping and murder of mines trader Rashmi Ranjan Mahapatra. Though he was in jail, police officials said he was known to plan and execute crimes from inside the jail.
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