April 24, 2018:
ASI Rajesh Kumar Pahal of Punjabi Bagh police station topped the list with 129.
Yes they are the Famous Five of Delhi police and colleagues call them the “star catchers.”
Five assistant sub-inspectors (ASI) have tailed and caught almost 500 proclaimed offenders in 2017, which is more than one-fourth of what the entire force managed that year.
Out of the five, posted in different locations, ASI Rajesh Kumar Pahal of Punjabi Bagh police station topped the list with 129.
He has nabbed around 1,500 proclaimed offenders since 2008, the year he became part of a team assigned to catch fugitive criminals.
The squad was being led by now-retired inspector Joginder Singh, who caught more than 3,500 proclaimed offenders in 39 years.
ASI Pahal joined the force in 1993 and worked as a driver in police stations and between 1998 and 2007, he drove official Gypsys of the station house officers of Daryaganj and Paschim Vihar police stations.
He accompanied them in several operations to catch proclaimed offenders. “The working style and dedication of those officers made them favourites of their seniors. This impressed and inspired me and I decided to be like them,” he said.
An opportunity came knocking in 2008 when inspector Singh put him on the trail of a fugitive named Virender Singh from Haryana’s Bahadurgarh, a bus driver hiding for almost 25 years after he ran over a man in old Delhi in 1983 and fled. The man died and a court declared Virender a proclaimed offender.
Pahal worked his intelligence network, disguised as a transporter and caught him.
Picture Source :
