Who is Pradeep Sharma, ex-Mumbai Police officer who killed 112 gangsters?

Pradeep Sharma, former Mumbai Police encounter specialist, on Tuesday was sentenced to life imprisonment  by the Bombay high court for the killing of Chhota Rajan gang member Ramnarayan Gupta aka Lakhan Bhaiyya in an alleged fake encounter in 2006. 

Sharma, 62, was handed the sentence 11 years after he was acquitted by a Mumbai court in connection with Lakhan Bhaiya's killing near Nana Nani Park in Versova. 

Here are five things to know about Pradeep Sharma, who was dreaded by gangsters during his stint with the Mumbai Police, in which he claimed to have eliminated at least 112 gangsters. 

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1. Pradeep Sharma is from the famed 1983 batch of police officers including Vijay Salaskar, Praful Bhosle, Ravindra Angre and Vinayak Saude. These cops were known for their crackdown on Mumbai underworld then led by likes of Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar, Chhota Rajan, Arun Gawli, Amar Naik and others. 

2. In 1999, Sharma along with his team members gunned down Chhota Rajan's aide Vinod Matkar, who was chosen by the don to eliminate Ibrahim in Pakistan. In the same year, the cop killed D-Company gangster Sadiq Kalia in Mumbai's Dadar. 

3. In 2003, Sharma and his team eliminated three suspected Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) terrorists in Mumbai's Goregaon area. Two of them, Abu Sultan and Abu Anwar, were Pakistani nationals.

4. Sharma is no stranger to controversies, having been dismissed from service in August 2008 for alleged links to the underworld. He was reinstated in May 2009 after orders of Maharashtra Administrative Tribunal.

5. Pradeep Sharma was arrested in 2010 for the alleged fake encounter of Rajan gang member Ramnarayan Gupta alias Lakhan Bhaiya in November 2006. He was acquitted in 2013 after serving four years in jail. 

6. In 2017, he was reinstated and was appointed as head of the Thane Police's Anti-Extortion Cell. He resigned in July 2019 to join the undivided Shiv Sena and contested the assembly elections from Nalasopara in Mumbai, which he lost.

7. Sharma was arrested for the second time in 2021 by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) when his name surfaced in the Antilia explosives scare and Mansukh Hiran murder case.