Sundar Bhati was serving a life sentence for the murder of a Samajwadi Party leader. (representative)

Lucknow:

Notorious gangster Sundar Bhati, who is serving a life sentence for the murder of Samajwadi Party leader Harendra Nagar and his gunman Bhudev Sharma, has been granted bail by the Allahabad High Court and has gone underground ever since.

After his release from Sonbhadra Jail, sources report that Bhati calmly boarded a flight from Varanasi to Delhi. He is believed to have been hiding since then in Haryana, with a Special Task Force (STF) team from western Uttar Pradesh closely monitoring his movements, sources said on Saturday.

Bhati, considered one of the most influential gangsters in western Uttar Pradesh, is from Ghanghola village in Gautam Buddh Nagar district and has more than 60 cases of murder, attempted murder, extortion, robbery and assault registered against him.

Before his imprisonment in Sonbhadra, Bhati was held in Hamirpur Jail, where he reportedly established contact with Sunny, one of three gunmen accused of murdering gangster Atiq Ahmed and his brother Ashraf in Prayagraj in April 2023. Bhati allegedly recruited Sunny into his network.

In this connection, Bhati’s name has surfaced in investigations related to the Atiq-Ashraf case. Some reports suggest that Bhati facilitated the supply of Zigana pistols, a foreign semi-automatic firearm manufactured in Turkey, to the shooters involved.

After Sunny was released from Hamirpur jail, he reportedly kept in touch with Bhati’s associates and eventually acquired a Zigana pistol through Bhati’s network.

The gang leader’s influence has reportedly increased after the encounter with the murder of his rival Anil Dujana in May 2023, just a month after the Atiq-Ashraf murder case.

With Dujana’s death, Bhati is believed to have sought to expand his control over scrap metal operations in western Uttar Pradesh.

In 2015, Bhati and his associates shot dead SP leader Harendra Nagar and his gunman during a wedding event in Greater Noida.

In 2021, Bhati, along with 11 of his accomplices, was sentenced to life in prison for the murders.

(Other than the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is being published from a syndicated feed.)