PRAYAGRAJ, Aug. 28 -- A criminal carrying a reward of Rs 50,000 on his arrest and involved in looting a Janseva Kendra operator in Maheshganj on June 30 besides a jeweller in Sangramgarh, was injured in police encounter in Sangramgarh area on Tuesday night after being shot in the leg. He was sent to CHC Sangramgarh for treatment, from where he was referred to Medical College. Police have recovered a 315 bore pistol, a bike and jewellery from his possession. As per reports, on June 30, two loot cases were reported and police had identified a common accused in both the cases and were searching for him. On Tuesday night, SHO of Sangramgarh police station Satyendra Singh Bhadoria, SHO of Maheshganj police station Mukesh Kumar Singh and SWAT team in-charge Amit Chaurasia were conducting routine checking near Sanda Harshpur canal in Sangramgarh. When they tried to stop a youth on a bike coming from the opposite direction, the latter opened fire at the police team. In the retaliatory fire, he got injured by a bullet in his right leg. He was identified as Govind Gautam, a resident of Faridpur village under Nawabganj police station of Prayagraj and carrying a reward of Rs 50,000. He was brought to CHC Sangramgarh from where he was referred to Medical College. CO (Lalganj) Ashutosh Mishra said that 10 criminal cases are registered against the accused in Pratapgarh, Prayagraj and Bhadohi districts. Police have arrested two chain snatchers and recovered Rs.2.38 lakh from them, which they got after selling the stolen gold chain. The accused were identified as Hariom Rajbhar alias Satyam of Shivdaspur, and Ashish Kumar alias Gaddi. A reward of Rs.25,000 had been declared on Satyam, said assistant commissioner of Police Atul Anjan Tripathi. During questioning, they said they snatched a chain from an elderly woman near Godaulia and sold it to a jeweller in Deoria for Rs.3 lakh. A 45-year-old man was shot dead by three bike-borne assailants in Varanasi's Sarnath area on August 21. The victim, Mahendra Gautam, was on his way to office from his home in Budh Nagar Colony when he was attacked near Arihant Nagar Phase-2. Following the murder, police registered a case under section 103(1) and 3/5(3) of the BNS. Ten teams, including SOG, cyber and surveillance units, were formed to track down the killers. On Friday, four men were arrested near Singhpur ring road after an encounter. Police recovered a country-made pistol (.315 bore), one empty shell, a live cartridge, and five keypad mobile phones from them. Those arrested were identified as Jogendra Yadav alias Fatu, Sampurnanand Shukla alias Chandan Shukla, Shyam Prakash Rajbhar alias Rekha Pradhan (all from Singhpur), and Mohd Muqeem from Munger, Bihar. According to DCP (Varuna Zone) Pramod Kumar, Muqeem had supplied the weapon and was caught during the early morning encounter. During interrogation, the accused revealed that Jogendra planned the murder and paid Rs.5 lakh to the shooters, as Mahendra was interfering in his property business. A man accused of looting a jeweller was caught by police after an early morning encounter on Wednesday. The incident took place at around 4am near Lilhat canal, under Phulpur police station area. According to DCP (Trans Ganga) Kuldeep Singh Gunawat, the Phulpur SHO and the Special Operations Group (SOG) were on patrol when they tried to stop two men on a motorcycle. Instead of stopping, the suspects opened fire on the police team. The police returned fire. One man was injured, while the other escaped in the dark. The injured accused was identified as Ramesh Saroj, a resident of Pratapgarh, under Jethwara police station. During questioning, he admitted to looting a jeweller named Shivshankar Soni on the night of August 24, along with three others....