Mumbai police’s ‘encounter specialist’ Pradeep Sharma all set for a comeback?

In January 2010, Sharma was arrested with 21 others in the Lakhan Bhaiyya fake encounter case

The Maharashtra government is considering a proposal to reinstate former encounter specialist Pradeep Sharma.

Sharma is one of the famed encounter specialists with more than 100 encounters, including three LeT suspects. (File)

Senior officials of the Maharashtra police told HT the proposal is pending with the home department and a formal decision is yet to be taken.

Sharma is one of the famed ‘encounter specialists’, with more than 100 encounters, including those of three LeT suspects, in his name.

Sharma was accused of a nexus with gangster Dawood Ibrahim for allegedly grabbing a plot in Malad and carrying out a fake encounter of former gangster Ram Narayan Gupta alias Lakhan Bhaiyya, a suspected aide of gangster Chhota Rajan, in November 2006 .

In January 2010, Sharma was arrested with 21 others in the Lakhan Bhaiyya case. While 13 policemen were convicted in July 2013, Sharma was acquitted.

He was dismissed in August 2008 for his alleged links with the underworld, but was reinstated on appeal by the Maharashtra Administrative Tribunal in May 2009.

In 2016, the state reinstated police sub-inspector Daya Nayak, Sharma’s aide who carried out 83 encounters. Nayak currently is with the Amboli police station in Mumbai.