Police said Atul Khatana, allegedly responsible for operating the racket and collecting the money, and Sujit alias Bullet, believed to be a trusted associate of Kaushal, were among those held in searches over Monday and Tuesday. The others are Manish Bhati, Suraj, Anil Kumar, Rakesh Yadav, Anand Kumar, Ravi Chaudhary, Purna Chand, Pawan, Rahul alias Billa, Niranjan and Jaiprakash.
But the latest arrests are police’s second attempt to shut the gang’s operation at the sprawling mandi.
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In February, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) alerted Gurgaon police about the racket after it carried out raids at the houses of Kaushal’s associates – Amit Dagar and Sandeep alias Bandar- in the city. The agency also told police that the mandi racket was one of the main sources of cash inflow for the gang, other than its influence over the lucrative liquor trade in the city.
Cops tried to talk to vendors, but none were willing to speak for fear of action against them, police told TOI on Tuesday.
It was then decided to send cops undercover to the mandi. So, in May and June, cops set up shop as vegetable sellers and stationed themselves at the mandi to figure out the workings of the gang. Discreetly, they managed to click some images and capture videos of suspected gang members and piece together the operations.
The Kaushal gang, according to the investigation, was earning Rs 20 lakh every month from just the mandi, which caters to the city and most of south Haryana.
It did this by creating a monopoly on the sale of polythene bags and power supply via generators to the thousands of vendors at the mandi.
ACP (crime) Varun Dahiya said the traders and vendors had no option but to buy the polythene bags from the gang at premium prices. “They used to supply around 700-800kg of plastic bags in a month,” he said.
The other necessity was that of power supply after dark. “There are very few shops with permanent electricity connections at the mandi. The majority of traders are in makeshift vends or carts, and they need electricity supply from generators evening onwards. This way, the gang would collect Rs 5,000 to Rs 7,000 from each vendor,” the ACP explained.
The third source of revenue for the gang was to fix wholesale prices for some vegetables and fruits to be sold to retail vendors, Dahiya said. “The gang pocketed the difference between the actual price of the produce and the inflated price of sale. Such things affect the entire city,” the ACP added.
In June, Gurgaon police nabbed Sandeep alias Bandar, for whose arrest NIA had announced a bounty of Rs 1 lakh. Sandeep was believed to be key to the nexus at the mandi and for the gang to fund its other activities.
The next month cops also arrested Twinkle, the wife of jailed gangster Amit Dagar. Investigators believe she had a commission agent’s licence and would fix the wholesale cost of produce sold at the market.
Police said the racket was suspended hereon, but Twinkle came out on bail this August and reactivated the operation.
“After receiving a complaint, police started identifying those who were involved in extortion and arrested 13 members of the gang,” the ACP said. An FIR was registered at the Shivaji Nagar police station under sections 384 (extortion), 34 (common intention) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC.
The son of a property dealer in Gurgaon, Kaushal — in his early 40s – used to fix submersible pumps until a family dispute with another gangster (Sudesh) took him to the world of organised crime. Wanted for several crimes, he was extradited from Dubai in 2019 and arrested at the Delhi airport. He has been in several Haryana jails since, and he is currently lodged in Bhondsi jail.
Police believe he continues to run the gang from behind the bars even as a turf war over Gurgaon’s liquor trade with rival Lawrence Bishnoi continues outside. The gang also remains active in other parts of Haryana, Delhi and Punjab.
“The latest arrests will affect the gang’s cash flow as extortion is one of the major sources of revenue,” a senior police officer said on Tuesday.
