Varanasi, February 4: The Special Task Force (STF) neutralised shooter Banarasi Yadav, wanted in the killing of colonizer Mahendra Gautam in the Sarnath police station area of the Varanasi.
During the encounter, one of his accomplices took advantage of the darkness and escaped. Upon receiving information about the encounter that took place late Tuesday night near Bariyasanpur on the Jalhupur Ring Road in the Chaubepur police station area, officers arrived at the scene. Police had been searching for the criminal, who had a reward of Rs 1 lakh, for the past five months.
According to the STF officers, late last night, Inspectors Amit Kumar Srivastava and Anil Kumar Singh received a tip-off that two wanted shooters would be arriving on a motorcycle on the Ring Road to carry out a major incident. The STF inspectors, along with their team, reached the Ring Road and cordoned off the area. Meanwhile, two young men were seen approaching from Ghazipur on a bike. When the STF team tried to stop them, one of them opened fire. The police team returned fire, hitting the criminal, who fell screaming to the ground. Seeing this, his companion fled the scene with his bike. The police team informed officers about the encounter and immediately rushed the injured criminal to Pt. Deendayal Upadhyay Government Hospital, Pandeypur, where doctors declared him dead.
As per the STF, the deceased criminal was identified as Banarasi Yadav, a resident of Gaurhat, Ghazipur. Police had been searching for him for a long time in connection with the murder of colonizer Mahendra Gautam. Two pistols and a large quantity of ammunition were recovered from the slain criminal during the encounter. Arvind Yadav, an army soldier from Maharajganj, Ghazipur, who was living with Banarasi in the colonizer murder case, had been arrested by police in an encounter a month earlier.
On August 21, colonizer Mahendra Gautam was shot dead by three bike-borne criminals in the Singhpur-Arihant Nagar Colony in the Sarnath police station area. One of the criminals was driving the bike, while two others sitting behind him were firing.