How dreaded gangster Sampat Nehra who wanted to kill Salman Khan was nabbed

The operation to pin down Sampat Nehra took three days to be executed. Sampat Nehra, a national-level decathlon player, was one of the most-wanted gangsters and a key player of the Lawrence Bishnoi gang.

Days after Haryana Special Task Force (STF) and Hyderabad police nabbed elusive gangster Sampat Nehra in a joint operation, officials said it took them three days to arrest him. Haryana STF officials also maintained that he was nabbed on the basis of a combination of human intelligence and technological surveillance.

Gangster Sampat Nehra was arrested by a special task force (STF) of Haryana Police from Hyderabad on June 6.(HT Photo)

Hailing from Rajgarh in Rajasthan, Nehra is a son of a retired Chandigarh police assistant sub-inspector Ram Chander and has studied in DAV College. A national-level decathlon player, he was one of the most-wanted gangsters and a key player of the Lawrence Bishnoi gang.

Satheesh Balan, DIG, STF (Gurugram), said, “Our team reached Hyderabad 15 days ago and Nehra’s location was traced to a radius of 100 metres amid the highrises in Hyderabad. We had inputs that Nehra arrived in Hyderabad 20 days ago.”

“It took us three days to execute the operation and nab him. Since patrolling by Haryana police officials would have raised suspicion, local police searched for him in the area. Not a single shot needed to be fired,” he said, adding that Nehra had no weapons with him when he was arrested.

Balan said that Nehra had rented out a room in a flat with two MBA graduates in Hyderabad, who were not aware of his criminal history. “Nehra told them he was looking for a job in Telangana. The roommates said that Nehra kept to himself and was mostly busy on his mobile phone,” said Balan.

STF officials said that Nehra has confessed to having been directly involved in or in a conspiracy to murder in at least 11 cases in Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh and Rajasthan. He has also confessed to having been involved in eight attempt-to-murder cases, three ransom cases and a few robbery and dacoity cases, police said.Nehra and his associates had tried to kill Rajender Singh, brother of INLD ex-MLA Dilbagh Singh.

Nehra was conspiring to spread his network in Gurugram, and had even set up a base in Manesar, said an official associated with the case. To expand his operations in Haryana and the national capital region, Nehra had joined hands with the Anil Chippi gang and Kala Jatheri gang, who are active in Rohtak and Sonepat. They wanted to displace Kaushal and Amit Dagar gang, which currently hold most sway in Gurugram.