Gurgaon: The backgrounds of the Deepak Nandal gang members who came to shoot a businessman in Sushant Lok on Thursday night have brought into focus a changing organised crime model in the state — the systematic recruitment of economically vulnerable youngsters, including teenagers with little or no criminal history, to execute extortion and murder plots while shielding gang leaders from direct exposure.According to police, the pattern bears striking similarities to allegations mentioned in recent US federal indictments against jailed gangsters Lawrence Bishnoi and Jaggu Bhagwanpuria.Among the five alleged shooters, four were killed in the encounter while the fifth is undergoing treatment. None fitted the profile of hardened criminals typically associated with organised gangs.One of those killed was a 17-year-old javelin thrower and the son of a farmer. Another, Ankit (18), worked as a labourer, while Nitin earned his livelihood repairing motorcycles. The lone survivor, Shivam, is the son of an auto-rickshaw driver.According to police, criminal syndicates are increasingly identifying youngsters from financially distressed families and drawing them into their networks with promises of quick money, protection and status. Many are first-time offenders who initially perform peripheral roles such as surveillance or logistics before being assigned extortion, targeted shootings and contract killings.“The gangs identify vulnerable youngsters who can be influenced with money and the promise of a better life. Many are first-time offenders or have little criminal history. They are gradually absorbed into the network and used as expendable foot soldiers,” an officer associated with the probe told TOI.Recruits, police said, are deliberately kept unaware of the larger conspiracy. Instead of interacting with gang leaders, they are typically told only where to collect weapons, whom to contact and what task to carry out. The compartmentalised structure makes it difficult to identify those financing operations, supplying arms or issuing instructions even after arrests or encounters.The model being examined in the Nandal case closely resembles allegations made in recent US federal indictments against Bishnoi and Bhagwanpuria under ‘Operation Hard Ball’. The indictments alleged that both criminal enterprises recruited poor and vulnerable youngsters, including minors, to commit violent offences, reducing both the operational cost of violence and the legal exposure of senior gang members.According to the indictments, recruiters used social media videos and messages to lure youngsters with promises of money, notoriety, protection and a better life. Trusted members were allegedly rewarded with opportunities to travel abroad on student or work visas to expand the criminal enterprise, while lower-level recruits received modest payments for violent assignments. One indictment alleged that, in some cases, contract killings were carried out for as little as Rs 20,000.Police said Thursday night’s encounter highlighted the same operational pattern. The five alleged shooters had reached Sushant Lok to kill a Gurgaon businessman after he refused to pay an extortion demand of Rs 10 crore. Officers also suspect the Nandal gang used teenagers in the firing on singer Rahul Fazilpuria earlier this year.Police agreed that the real challenge lies in breaking the recruitment networks that identify, indoctrinate and deploy vulnerable youngsters long before they become the faces of violent crime..
