The Bombay High Court sentenced ex-Mumbai Police encounter specialist Pradeep Sharma to life for a 2006 fake encounter, killing Chhota Rajan gang member Ramnarayan Gupta, aka Lakhan Bhaiyya.
He received this punishment eleven years after a Mumbai court cleared Sharma, 62, of any involvement in the murder of Lakhan Bhaiya near Versova’s Nana Nani Park.
During his service with the Mumbai Police, gangsters feared Pradeep Sharma, who was reputed to have killed at least 112 of them. Here are five facts to know about him.
Pradeep Sharma History
1. Pradeep Sharma is from the renowned 1983 police class, alongside Vinayak Saude, Vijay Salaskar, Praful Bhosle, and Ravindra Angre. Led by Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar, Chhota Rajan, Arun Gawli, and Amar Naik, they battled Mumbai’s underworld.
2. In 1999, Sharma and his associates shot Vinod Matkar, an assistant to Chhota Rajan, whom the don had selected to kill Ibrahim in Pakistan. Sadiq Kalia, a D-Company criminal, was slain by the police in Dadar, Mumbai, that same year.
3. In Mumbai’s Goregaon neighborhood, Sharma and his group killed three alleged Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) terrorists in 2003. Abu Sultan and Abu Anwar two of them were citizens of Pakistan.
4. In August 2008, Sharma’s job terminated him due to claims linking him to the underworld. The Maharashtra Administrative Tribunal’s orders resulted in his reinstatement in May 2009.
5.In 2010, authorities detained Pradeep Sharma, alleging he arranged a false meeting with Ramnarayan Gupta, aka Lakhan Bhaiya, a Rajan gang member, in November 2006. He remained in prison for four years until authorities found him not guilty in 2013.
6. He was brought back and given the position of chief of the Thane Police’s Anti-Extortion Cell in 2017. In order to join the Shiv Sena, he resigned in July 2019. He ran in the Mumbai assembly elections from Nalasopara but was unsuccessful.
7. In 2021, the NIA detained Sharma again after linking him to the Antilia explosives scare and the Mansukh Hiran murder case.