Police get 6 more days to quiz Kaushal, plumber who became feared gangster

It was on August 26 that Kaushal, who has “150-200 cases” registered against him, was arrested by a joint team of the STF and Faridabad Police — four years after he jumped parole while serving a sentence of life imprisonment in relation with a murder case.

On the radar

The crime was also among the first that brought him on the police radar. Son of a property dealer in Gurgaon’s Naharpur Rupa village, Kaushal, now 38, initially worked with his father before branching out into plumbing, and earning by repairing pumps.

Although two cases of “voluntarily causing hurt” were registered against him at Sadar police station as early as 2002, it wasn’t until 2006 that he started committing heinous crimes. The first murder he committed was of another gangster, Chhelu, with whom his family was involved in a land dispute. Kaushal was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.

During trial, however, other FIRs continued to be registered against him, including at least five murder cases at Sadar police station. Police records indicate he has since been acquitted in all.

Imprisoned in the 2006 murder, Kaushal managed to escape in 2015 while he was out on parole for six weeks. The FIR regarding his escape states that he had been released on parole on April 10, 2015, and “directed to surrender at jail gate on April 23 before noon”, but did not.

While he remained absconding, police said cases against him continued to pile up.

Among murders he is suspected to have plotted is that of the mother of a man who “roamed around” with his rival Manjeet Mahal, while he was lodged in Bhondsi prison.

Money matters

Several of the FIRs registered against Kaushal and his gang accuse him of extortion, with complainants stating that his accomplices would venture into their places of business and hand a chit with a phone number to an employee, before opening fire in the air to intimidate them.

Such attempts were made, for example, at Om Sweets in Gurgaon in 2018, and later that year at Pushpanjali Hospital in Rewari. In the latter case, a doctor alleged he had been receiving voice messages from Kaushal “demanding money at the earliest or get ready to face the consequences”.

In 2019, at least three cases of murder have been registered against Kaushal. While the first was the murder of a Gurgaon resident whose family alleged he had received calls from Kaushal, the second was the murder of a property dealer.

It was the third case, however — the murder of the Congress’s Haryana spokesperson Vikas Chaudhary — that led Haryana Police to strengthen efforts to nab the absconding gangster. Chaudhary was shot dead in Faridabad in June. Kaushal’s wife and domestic help were arrested the following month, with police saying that the former had planned the murder at the behest of her husband, who had “financial dealings” with Chaudhary.

With Faridabad Police questioning Kaushal over the next six days, more details are expected to emerge. Commissioner of Police K K Rao said: “We will also question him regarding other cases.”