STF guns down 4 members of dreaded Kagga gang in Shamli
Four members of Saharanpur’s Kagga gang were killed in a gunfight with the UP STF in Shamli, injuring STF inspector Sunil Kumar critically.
Four dreaded members of Saharanpur’s Kagga gang were gunned down in a fierce encounter with the UP Special Task Force (STF) in Shamli district’s Jhinjhina area early Tuesday, senior officials said.
STF inspector Sunil Kumar, who was leading the team, was critically wounded as he suffered three bullet injuries in the stomach in the cross-firing that lasted for about 40 minutes, the STF officials said. Kumar, 52, was initially rushed to the Amrit Dhara hospital of Karnal in Haryana from where he was referred to Medanta in Gurugram.
The exchange of fire took place near the Haryana border in Shamli district. Wanted criminal Arshad, who hailed from Saharanpur and carried a reward of ₹1 lakh, was one of the four people killed in the retaliatory firing by the STF, UP Police additional director general (ADG), Law and Order, Amitabh Yash said. While the identity of one of them was yet to be ascertained, the two others were identified as Manjeet Dahiya from Haryana’s Sonipat and Satish Singh from Karnal, the ADG added.
He said Arshad was wanted in a robbery held at a finance company’s office on November 29, 2024 in Saharanpur after which Meerut Zone ADG DK Thakur increased the reward for his arrest to ₹1 lakh on December 19. He said as many as 21 criminal cases of robbery, dacoity and murder were registered against him in UP and Haryana between 2011 and 2025.
Meerut STF unit additional superintendent of police (ASP) Brijesh Kumar Singh said Arshad adopted the life of crime when he joined the gang of slain gangster Mustafa alias Kagga, and his name surfaced in a dacoity in 2011.
The ASP said Kagga was gunned down in a police encounter later that year after which his close aide Mukeem Kala took the reins of the gang. Kala was shot dead, along with gangster-politician Mukhtar Ansari’s aide Merajuddin, by another gangster, Anshu Dixit, in a gang war inside Chitrakoot jail on May 14, 2021. Anshu was also killed by the police in the same incident, the ASP added.
“Arshad took the command after the death of Mukeem Kala and was committing crimes with the help of his associates soon after he was bailed out of jail in June 2024,” he added. “He reformed the gang by roping in criminals from West UP and Haryana.”
The ASP said Manjit Dahiya, who was also killed in the encounter, had at least five criminal cases registered against him. Dahiya was even awarded life term in a 2021 murder case and came out on parole around five months ago. He said the third accused, Satish Singh, was the son of a former sub-inspector in Haryana Police and had at least four criminal cases registered against him between 2002 and 2025 in Karnal and Shamli. Efforts were on to ascertain the identity of the fourth accused killed in the encounter, he added.
He added that the encounter was held when an STF team of the Meerut unit tried to intercept the criminals in an SUV who were moving towards Haryana from Shamli. He said the criminals opened indiscriminate firing on the STF team following which the cops fired in retaliation. While three criminals in the SUV were killed, another was gunned down following a brief chase. He said the STF had recovered two pistols, one carbine and three country-made firearms, along with a huge cache of ammunition (including 45 cartridges and 11 shells of fired bullets), from their possession.
Injured STF cop was in teams that killed 2 Chambal brigands
Meerut STF ASP Brijesh Kumar Singh said STF inspector Sunil Kumar, who was also involved in the encounters of dreaded brigands Shiv Kumar Patel alias Dadua and Ambika Patel alias Thokia in the jungles of Chambal in Chitrakoot on July 22, 2007 and August 5, 2008, was critically injured as he suffered bullet wounds in the abdomen during the 40-minute-long cross-firing between four criminals and a police team around 2 am on Tuesday.
The inspector was being treated at a Gurugram hospital, where doctors said a bullet was still inside his body. Kumar, whose condition was stated to be critical, was kept under observation for another 24 hours, the ASP added.
Another police official said inspector Kumar, who hails from Masuri in Meerut, is from the armed police, and he got recruited as a platoon commander in the Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) but opted to work with the STF around 25 years ago.
