GURUGRAM: Once a national level hockey player and an aspiring policeman, Joginder Panchi (34) became a ‘most wanted’ criminal, heading a gang specialising in snatching, loot and kidnapping, with several cases registered against him in Haryana, Rajasthan, UP and Delhi.Joginder and four gang members were arrested after four years on the run, by a Haryana Police special task force (STF), in an encounter in Rewari on Thursday, in connection with the kidnapping of the son of the owner of Pushpanjali Hospital. STF recovered four pistols — two of 32 bore, one 9mm and one country-made — 10 rounds of bullets and 12 empty bullet cases, Rs 49.70 lakh in cash and two cars from their possession. They were produced before court, which sent them to three-day remand with STF.In 2015, when Joginder was applying for various government jobs on sports quota (having played hockey for the state), police force was his preference. At the same time, Joginder’s mother decided to enter politics, when she contested for panchayat election in their village in Sonipat, Panchi Jatan. Joginder and his brother, a commandant in CRPF while he was on leave, went canvassing for their mother, who emerged as a strong candidate. Unnerved by the stiff challenge, political opponents allegedly got Joginder’s brother killed. The tragedy changed Joginder’s life for ever, pushing him into the world of crime.Joginder took to arms to avenge his brother’s murder and went on to form a gang, mostly with fellow sportsmen. Along with cousin Deepak, he arranged for a pistol. In May 2016, they tracked down the former Panchi Jatan sarpanch Surender, their mother’s opponent in the panchayat election, at Bhadra, Rajasthan and fired on him. Surender escaped and a case was registered against the shooters. Since then, they were on the run.Soon, Joginder got in touch with some gangs in Haryana and started as a sharpshooter. In February 2017, he was part of a gang that murdered a Satbir in Panipat. In December the same year, he murdered influential advocate Satyavan Mallik in Rohtak, for which Haryana Police announced a Rs 50,000 reward on his head and Rs 20,000 on Deepak’s.By then, they had got in touch with Shiv Kumar alias Simba, Kamal and Amitesh Choubey . Amitesh, a rising pro MMA boxer and aspiring actor, joined the gang to fund his dream to produce a film with himself as lead. They started by snatching a vehicle, holding people hostage and withdrawing money from ATMs, or kidnap them for ransom. Thus far, they were a success, extracting ransom from residents of Delhi and Gurugram, and seeing to it that most of these cases didn’t get reported.“Amitesh has acted in a Bhojpuri film. At present, he was shooting for another Bhojpuri film when he got arrested,” IG STF K K Rao said, adding this is the first time the gang members have been arrested. He also said though most gang members had sports background, Amitesh alone was active as a sportsperson. “He was acting as lead in a Bhojpuri film and the director had asked him to pay Rs 50 lakh to complete it,” said a senior police officer.Luck ran out for the gang, which committed a series of crimes in Haryana, Delhi and UP over the past 7-8 months, after they kidnapped a doctor, who is the son of the owner of Pushpanjali Hospital, on March 16. The hospital’s owners were already on the radar of many gangs. In November last year, a gang had opened fire on the hospital in an extortion bid. Since then, the family of the owners had been given police security. Although the gang released the young doctor in exchange of Rs 55 lakh ransom, several teams of Gurugram police and STF had started chasing them down.STF were the first to get a lead. They were told that Amitesh might help them identify the accused. On Wednesday, they picked up Amitesh from a training camp in Lucknow. “He claimed he was innocent but could help identify those involved,” said Rao, adding that based on his confessions, early morning on Thursday, they arrested Joginder and his gang in Rewari after a brief encounter. The arrested gang members then spilled the beans that Amitesh was also involved, finally leading to Amitesh’s arrest on Thursday.DIG Satheesh Balan said of the two vehicles STF had recovered, one was recently purchased by Amitesh from his share of ransom money. “Amitesh got Rs 5 lakh, of which he spent Rs 4.5 lakh on a new car,” said Balan. He added they have recovered Rs 49.70 lakh of the Rs 55 lakh ransom money.

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