Tuesday, 19 SEPTEMBER 2023 | PNS | DEHRADUN
The Uttarakhand Special Task Force (STF) on Monday arrested Deepak Sisodia, an aide of notorious gangster Chhota Rajan and convict in the murder case of journalist J Dey. He was serving a life term and was out on 45-day parole in January 2022 but did not return to Amravati Central Jail on March 8. The police had suspected that he had fled to Nepal, said the STF senior superintendent of police Ayush Agrawal. He said that Sisodia is a native of Haldwani’s Jeetpur Negi village in Nainital district. He said that on the complaint of Mumbai police, a case was registered in Haldwani police station in Nainital district under section 224 (resistance or obstruction by a person to his lawful apprehension) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) after Sisodia escaped. The Nainital police had also announced a reward of Rs 25,000 on his arrest. He said that the STF was consistently trying to nab him for over a year. “We arrested Chhota Rajan’s aide from Banbasa area of Champawat district along the Indo-Nepal border on Monday morning. We have been making efforts for his arrest for a year. He was suspected to have taken shelter in Nepal. We had received confidential information that he comes to his hometown in Haldwani secretly by crossing the border from Nepal. We received information about his plan to visit Haldwani on Sunday night. Considering this, a team was deployed at Banbasa to nab him,” said Agrawal. He claimed that STF arrested Sisodia as soon as he crossed the border in his car near Banbasa railway station. “We will send him to Mumbai soon after completing the necessary procedures,” he added. The police arrested Sisodia in 2011 for his involvement in the J Dey murder case on charges of having given the .32 mm US-made revolver to alleged Rajan aide Satish Kalya at Kathgodam near Nainital. The Nainital police had then arrested him and handed him over to Mumbai police, as per the officials.
