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Syed Amin Jafri in Hyderabad
A criminal belonging to the Chhota Shakeel gang was killed in an encounter with the Hyderabad police in the early hours of Sunday.
Giving details of the incident, Police Commissioner Pervaram Ramulu told a media conference that Mohammed Hanif died of bullet injuries sustained in an exchange of fire with a police party.
Hanif was one of Bombay's most wanted criminals.
On a tip-off that some gangsters were going to smuggle weapons from the Golconda area into the city, a team of policemen reached the Seven-Tombs junction near Golconda and started checking vehicles at around 2 am, he said.
At 2.15 am, a scooter without any registration number was sighted at Toli Chowki under Lunge Houz police station limits. On seeing the police party, the scooterists slowed down. The pillion rider, who was carrying a bag, got down and ran towards the nearby bushes. The scooter-rider sped away towards Toli Chowki.
When the police chased the duo, one of them -- identified as Hanif-- turned back and opened fire. The police returned fire in self-defence, injuring him seriously. The police immediately rushed him to the Osmania General Hospital, where he was pronounced "dead on arrival".
The police recovered a pistol, spent cartridges, a black bag containing two country-made firearms, ammunition, a cell phone and a diary, the commissioner said, and pointed out that the diary revealed the identity of Hanif, alias Yameen Takhla.
Hanif hailed from Thane and was staying in Akbar Bagh locality in Golconda area. The diary contained the cell phone numbers of Chhota Shakeel in Dubai.
"Subsequent enquiries with the Bombay police confirmed that Hanif was a close associate of Chhota Shakeel. He was involved in several murder cases.
"The Bombay police informed us that cases were pending against Hanif at Goregaon, Bandra, Malan, Vakola, Nirmalnagar and Vushikora police stations. People had stopped complaining against him as he was eliminating the complainants," the commissioner said.
"We are catching one by one the linchpins of the underworld dons. We are in touch with the Bombay police regard. Hyderabad is attracting lot of business from these dons," he added.
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