Lucknow, October 24
Third time proved to be unlucky for him. Lodged in Lucknow jail for the past two years, Noor Baksh, sharp shooter of Dawood Ibrahim gang, was shot down by the state police this morning when he tried to escape on way to the local court.

Four accomplices who had come on two motor cycles to rescue him, however, escaped without a trace.

One 9 mm US-made pistol marked ‘only for army’, two cartridges, four empty shells and one magazine having five cartridges were recovered from his person.

Search of his jail cell led to the discovery of a 1 GB memory card containing blue film clippings and a piece of paper containing cryptic codes. The main case against him in Uttar Pradesh was of fake passports and escaping from police custody.

Originally said to be a resident of Balochistan in Pakistan, Noora or Noor Baksh had reportedly served in the National Guard of UAE and had also been part of the Dubai police.

On October 18, 2005 he had escaped from a running train near Itarsi station when he was being taken to Bangalore to be tried in a case of fake passport. Earlier, he had done the vanishing trick on May 15, 2001 when he was being taken to Naini jail after a hearing in the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate in Lucknow.

According to SP of Special Task Force Amitabh Yash the incident occurred barely 100 meters from the Jail Road crossing this morning. Four young men riding two motor cycles bearing UP numbers shot at the Tata Sumo carrying the international terrorist to court.

As Noora escaped from the police vehicle policemen trailing the vehicle on motor cycles gave him a chase and managed to shoot him down. However, his injured accomplices got away taking advantage of the bylanes in the area.

Sub Inspector Bhanupratap Singh and constables Arvind Singh, Shivsagar Tiwari, Rakesh, Vinod Mishra and Ajay Tripathi were injured when Noora’s accomplices fired at the police party. They were admitted to a local hospital where they are said to be out of danger.

His arrest by the STF from a Chinese restaurant in the heart of Lucknow on November 24, 2005 was claimed to be a major achievement as he was reported to be an international criminal and close associate of Dawood Ibrahim and Chota Shakeel
At that point he had been paraded before the media and appeared to be in his early 40s. Despite being in police custody he had refused to say anything except confirm his name as ‘Noor Mohammad’ and admit that he knew English, Arabic and Hindi. He goes by various pseudonyms, including Yasin Baluchi, Nasir Hussain and Mohammad Baksh.

A mobile phone, a fake passport in the name of Ali Baksh bearing his photograph, Rs 1,180 in cash and five receipts of a PCO for calls reportedly made to the D company were recovered from his person.

Not ruling out his association with Abu Salem, the STF had claimed that Noor Baksh, had acquired a UAE citizenship and had facilitated the visas of the sharpshooters who had made an attempt on Chota Rajan’s life in Bangkok.