25 years on, man nabbed for killing four taxi drivers

A man, who was on the run for 25 years after allegedly murdering taxi drivers and dumping their bodies in Uttarakhand’s remote forests, has finally been arrested by the Delhi Police.

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The accused, Ajay Lamba, alias Banshi (49), was wanted in four chilling robbery-cum-murder cases across Delhi and Uttarakhand, including a 2001 case registered in New Ashok Nagar. Declared a proclaimed offender in all of them, Lamba evaded arrest for over two decades by frequently changing location and identities and even shifting to Nepal.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime) Aditya Gautam said Lamba orchestrated a series of crimes between 1999 and 2001. He hired taxis with the help of accomplices, killed the drivers, dumped their bodies in forest regions of Haldwani, Almora and Champawat and sold the stolen vehicles off across the Nepal border.

“Originally from Krishna Nagar in Delhi, Lamba dropped out of school after Class VI and got involved in crime. He was once declared a ‘bad character’ by the Vikas Puri police under the alias ‘Banshi’. He later changed his identity to Ajay Lamba in 1996 and shifted to Bareilly, where he built a criminal network with associates Dhirendra and Dilip Negi,” DCP Gautam said.

Despite the gravity of the crimes, Lamba was never arrested in any of the four murder cases. He remained elusive, living in Nepal with his family from 2008 to 2018, before moving to Dehradun.

In recent years, the police said, Lamba turned to narcotics trafficking, allegedly helping move ganja from Odisha to Delhi and other cities. He was arrested in 2021 under the NDPS Act by the Sagarpur police, and again in 2024 for a dacoity at a jewellery shop in Odisha’s Berhampur. Out on bail in both cases, he never revealed his fugitive past.

The Delhi Police finally apprehended him in a coordinated operation.