Gun lover, gang member, and mother of a two-year-old: The making of New Seelampur’s 19-year-old ‘Lady Don’

Her Instagram handle, ‘Sher_ki_Sherni’, has more than 24,000 followers. And her posts and reels sported a common tagline — ‘Lady Don’.

This young woman is Zikra of Northeast Delhi’s New Seelampur. An alleged member of the Mastan gang, she has garnered quite a reputation at the age of 19.

Ten days after her arrest and subsequent release on bail in the Arms Act case, Zikra was arrested again on a far more serious charge — allegedly abetting the murder of a 17-year-old boy in the locality where she lives.

On April 17, police said the 17-year-old was out buying milk when Zikra’s associates — an 18-year-old and two juveniles — cornered him in the market and allegedly stabbed him multiple times. Zikra was there too, watching it unfold, police claimed.

4. Spot where the 17-year-old boy was killed on April 17. (Express photo by Amit Mehra)

Police have claimed that she was the key conspirator of the crime, which sparked communal tension in the area.

They have since apprehended eight others in the case. DCP (Northeast) Ashish Kumar Mishra had earlier said, “During the probe, evidence was collected against the accused — Zikra, another accused and two juveniles — who conspired to attack the victim. Five suspects aided the main accused in escaping and hiding.”

Police insisted that the teen was a member of a gang and became a victim of rivalry between two warring groups. His family, however, has flatly denied his gang links.

The rise of Zikra

At the centre of New Seelampur’s CPJ Block is a modest square, locally called the chowk or chowki — a busy crossroad where everyday life converges. Vendors line the edges selling groceries. Others serve up samosas and kachoris alongside strong, sweet tea made with buffalo milk sourced fresh from local families, who keep the animals in small sheds behind the temple in the chowk.

The Sheetla Mata temple is at one end, its bells occasionally breaking through the chatter. The small, beige two-storeyed house of Zikra’s mother, which now sports a lock on its door, sits just beside the temple, while her uncle’s home is a few steps away.

Her grandmother’s house, which has locally earned the moniker “AC wala ghar” — it is the only house in that part of the block that has a split AC — is a 10-minute walk through the winding alleys, where two people can barely pass through without brushing shoulders or bumping into each other.

The 17-year-old victim’s house is even closer, barely a minute away on foot.

Tall trees arch over the narrow streets, offering shade to the busy lanes that thread through J and H Block, all leading inevitably to the chowk. It is here that Zikra and her friends gathered every night before heading out, claimed locals.

Zikra is the eldest child of her parents, Heena and Sharvar Khan. Soon after her younger brother, who is now 14, was born, their parents divorced. Heena is now married to Sameer.

But how did this young baby-faced woman, with long hair and blonde highlights, gain such notoriety?

Her social media videos provided clues to the tough and cool exterior she attempted to showcase. In one reel, mouthing lyrics and dialogues, she swaggers into the frame, wearing a sweatshirt and joggers, with her hands in her pockets.

In another reel, she wears a spotless white kurta and pajama while making finger guns at the camera on cue with gunshot sound effects.

Her favourite accessory is always a gun. Posing with one casually placed against her temple, cocking it in a video with a cheeky smile, or even planting a kiss on the barrel — Zikra adores the guns she handles. “Mohabbat, meri rani (My love, she’s my queen),” she wrote in the caption of pictures of her manicured and painted hands splayed and stroking a gun with bullets scattered around it.

When The Indian Express spoke to acquaintances and neighbours of Zikra, they said she has always been headstrong, even in school.

A former classmate, Manisha (18), said Zikra was expelled in Class X after she allegedly slapped a teacher who reprimanded her. “She would tell other girls not to mess with her or she’d beat them up. She would often start fights as well,” she said.

A senior police officer said she got married when she was 17. She lived with her husband, who is in the scrap business, for over a year at his home in Janta Colony in Welcome. They have a two-year-old son. But she soon returned to her family home in Seelampur, along with the child. She moved in with her mother, her stepfather, and her younger brother.
Last year, she got divorced. “She was often in contact with people who had criminal backgrounds, so she divorced her husband,” the officer said.

Mohammad Atiq, a neighbour, said she was always a wilful child. “But around the time she turned 12-13 years old, she became very stubborn. She’d often talk back to her grandmother and mother, never listening to them… she had a gang of 14-15 friends who she was close to.”

Bismillah, who runs a tea stall near the family home, said she became more brazen as she increasingly became embroiled with the police. “After her recent arrest, she found greater admiration and respect among her friends… she started going out with her group more often… All night, they would roam around, shooting bullets in the air and mugging people who dared to cross their path,” he claimed.

Police personnel deployed in New Seelampur, Northeast Delhi. (Express photo by Tashi Tobgyal)

Atiq added that frequent complaints from neighbours only elicited helpless responses from her family. “They’d just say, ‘What can we do? She doesn’t listen’,” he said.

The area’s pradhan, Vinod Pradhan, tried to shed some light on why Zikra and several young people have taken to crime. “These children… don’t see a point in studying… There are no jobs… they see people around them engage in crime and earn money. Most of the children come from violent households… or their parents are neglectful… So they mimic what they see around them.”

It was around the time of her marriage, police said, that Zikra came in contact with Zoya Khan, the wife of jailed gangster Hashim Baba. Zoya — recently arrested in connection with the murders of a businessman and a gym owner — lived near the home of Zikra’s husband.

During questioning, police said, Zikra admitted that she was inspired by Zoya, who would also make reels on Instagram. Zikra wanted to join Hashim Baba via Zoya but she had to return to Seelampur after the divorce. She then decided to join the Mastan gang, a recent entrant into the crime world, said police.

Mastan vs Lala gangs

The Mastan gang is allegedly led by Shoaib Mastan (21), who lives in the same locality. His criminal records show he’s been involved in thefts and snatchings. He has been in and out of jail several times; he was lodged in Tihar Jail in connection with a robbery case till recently, police said.

The gang, which has been around for the past three-four years, counts several juveniles among its members, added the police — some of these young men are Zikra’s relatives.

Their rivals are the group led by Lala. Police records show that Lala alias Prashant (25), a resident of the same area, faces two criminal cases of causing hurt. Like Mastan, his group also comprises youngsters.

According to police, the 17-year-old’s murder appears to be a fallout between these two groups. A police officer claimed the teen was with the Lala group, part of the ‘Gyara Samaj’ — a collective term for 11 different castes living in the area.
The members of the two groups often engaged in fights over supremacy in the locality and frequently posted photos with guns on their social media profiles, challenging each other to showcase their power, an officer said. “She (Zikra), too, would post reels of herself posing with pistols on Instagram,” the officer added.

During Diwali last year, an officer said members of the two groups had fought over an issue of parking a bike in a lane. After this incident, police said, Lala’s group attacked an 18-year-old from the Mastan gang — who is now one of the accused in the 17-year-old’s murder — in November 2024.

Things came to a head on the evening of April 17. In revenge for the November attack, police said, Zikra’s associates allegedly knifed the teen. Before the attack, they asked him about Lala’s whereabouts, police added.

According to the victim’s mother, members of the Mastan gang had often come around demanding to know where Lala was. “They asked my son, too, but he refused to tell them… he knew they’d kill Lala. The Mastan gang cornered several people in the locality and asked them to give up Lala. Zikra even threatened people at knife point,” claimed the mother.

Despite two earlier clashes, neither party registered a case against the other. “Yahaan khoon ka badla khoon se lete hai (Here, people believe in an eye for an eye)” said the 17-year-old’s great aunt.

Even though he knew Lala, the deceased’s family members insisted that their child was never involved in any such violence. “He was strait-laced… he had bigger worries at home since he was the only earning member,” said his mother.

The teen worked at a shop in Gandhi Nagar.

“I can’t work because of nerve issues in my hands and feet… his attention was always at home since he had to take care of his grandmother and father’s medical issues,” she added.

Police said they will soon question Lala and his associates in connection with the case.

The Mastan and Lala groups are not part of the list of 95 organised criminal gangs, provided by the Delhi Police to the Supreme Court, that hold sway over the Capital. But, officers said, their members aspire to become ‘dons’ someday and wield clout.

The area is no stranger to gang violence, though. Parts of Northeast Delhi and Shahdara have been witness to a gang war between Abdul Nasir and Irfan alias Chhenu Pehalwan, who are in jail now, as their decades-old animosity over illegal trade of drugs and weapons played out on the streets.
“The gang war between Nasir and Cheenu has led to the killing of over half of dozen people in the last decade,” a police officer said.

Communal tension

The neighbourhood, meanwhile, has been on the edge since the crime. Units of the Central Reserve Police Force and Rapid Action Force, along with the local police, have been deployed in the lane where the victim’s house is located.
A day after the murder, the teen’s family members and locals had staged protests with placards that read ‘Hindus are moving out’. They also taped handwritten notes on their doors calling for help from Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta and Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath.

A week later, they were still there, under a makeshift tent — this time holding placards demanding justice for the boy’s death.

Politicians, too, fanned the flames.

BJP MLA from Patparganj, Ravinder Singh Negi, had visited the spot a day after the murder and said, “I demand of the Delhi Police that an encounter be done with such people (accused).”

Locals also claimed Daksh Chaudhary, who attacked former JNU student union president Kanhaiya Kumar during the 2024 Lok Sabha election campaign and defaced street signs with Muslim names in February, had visited the victim’s mother. Chaudhary’s recent posts on his Instagram page show him leading protests demanding justice for the boy.

Many residents, however, said the issue between the two groups was not motivated by religious differences.

Vinod said, “Hindus and Muslims have lived in this area peacefully for decades… I am from Seelampur, I’ve grown old here. In my opinion, things were fine until the 2020 riots. Uske baad mahaul kharab ho gaya (The atmosphere was ruined after that).”

“After the boy’s funeral, some politicians came and filled the family’s head with nonsense about their son being targeted because of his identity,” he alleged.

Adnan, a 22-year-old scrap seller, concurred. “The nature of young people in this area is to show off how powerful they are. Most children here flaunt knives and guns on their social media accounts…,” he said.

“Everyone wants to become a gangster here.”