To Avoid 'Encounter', Dreaded Criminal Walks Into Delhi Court Wearing Burqa

A wanted criminal wished to surrender before a court but feared he might get killed on the way. To evade that he came up with an ingenious plan: he reached court wearing a burqa.

25-year-old Sohail Khan - a native of Bulandshahr in Uttar Pradesh - was wanted in a case of firing outside a businessman's home on October 26 in Delhi.

Before he reached the court to surrender, he moved an application before the Patiala House court on Wednesday. In the application, he claimed he was not involved in the case and said that he feared that the police might kill him in an encounter.

After he surrendered, he was arrested by the special cell of Delhi Police.

CCTV footage of the October 26 incident showed a man - suspected to be Khan - throwing a note inside the businessman's home in the Rani Bagh area of northwest Delhi and firing multiple shots in the air. Khan is allegedly associated with the Bambiha-Kaushal Chaudhary gang.

In the note, the accused allegedly demanded Rs 15 crore as extortion. They wrote the names of gangsters belonging to the Bambiha gang on it.

Sohail Khan was on the run after the incident and several police teams were after him.

The police arrested two of the accused - Bilal Ansari (22) and Shuheb (21) - within a week of the incident. One of them was also injured in the shooting by a police team during their arrest.

Sohail Khan, however, managed to evade arrest and several police teams were after him.

The police said Khan has more than half a dozen cases of robbery and snatching registered against him in Delhi and the nearby areas.

After his arrest, the court sent him to seven days of police custody for further interrogations.