New Delhi: Deepak Pahal alias Deepak Boxer, one of the most wanted gangsters in Delhi and National Capital Region, was arrested in Mexico Monday after a massive operation by the Special Cell of the Delhi Police, with help from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), police sources said.
He is expected to be brought back to India after completion of formalities, police sources told ThePrint Tuesday.
With over a dozen cases of murder, attempt to murder, extortion, dacoity lodged against him across Delhi and Haryana, Pahal was absconding since he jumped parole in September last year, sources in the Delhi Police said.
According to sources, Pahal flew to Mexico from Kolkata with a fake passport in the name of ‘Ravi Antil’. The passport was made last December in Uttar Pradesh’s Bareilly, sources added.
A national level-boxer-turned-gangster and native of Ganaur in Haryana’s Sonipat district, Pahal has been in the police radar since 2016. He carried a reward of Rs 2 lakh on his arrest, sources said.
“After [Jitender Mann] Gogi’s death, Pahal started leading the Gogi gang. He has been running the operations of the gang even from Mexico. He went to Mexico after jumping parole and was running the gang from there,” a senior police officer told ThePrint.
In September 2021, Jitendra Mann alias Gogi was shot dead during a hearing, allegedly by two members of the rival Sunil Maan alias Tillu Tajpuriya’s gang inside the Rohini district courtroom.
The initial criminal cases against Pahal are from 2016, according to his criminal dossier accessed by ThePrint. A Class 10 passout, his methods of killing include “forcible hanging”, it states.
Pahal was allegedly part of the conspiracy hatched and executed for Gogi’s escape from the Haryana Police’s custody in 2016, according to reports.
He was allegedly involved in the killing of Burari-based realtor Amit Gupta in September last year. Gupta, 48, was fired at several times in the Civil lines area of North Delhi. In a Facebook post, Pahal, who was then 27-year-old, said that the murder had nothing to do with extortion but only revenge, police had said.
According to sources in the Delhi Police, the murder was allegedly planned to take revenge as the Gogi gang believed that Gupta had ties with the Tillu gang.
“After Gogi’s death, Pahal has been issuing warnings against the Tillu gang and also to those wanting to join the rival gang. The Gogi gang has been planning revenge on the rival gang since his murder,” the officer said.
Pahal had joined the junior Indian boxing team in 2014 and had been the junior national champion, according to reports.
(Edited by Anumeha Saxena)
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