In Gurugram, 60 rounds, 120 seconds

For nearly two minutes on the night of July 9, Block A of Sushant Lok Phase-I in Haryana’s Gurugram sounded like a war zone. Just minutes from the glitzy Mehrauli-Gurugram Road, known for its premium hotels and luxury showrooms, a quiet enclave of bungalows was jolted by gunfire. More than 60 rounds were fired in a brief but intense exchange — roughly one bullet every two seconds — as Gurugram Police and alleged shooters faced off outside a businessman’s house.

The confrontation left four alleged shooters dead and three policemen injured. The dead were Sandeep (alias Deepa), a criminal with a dozen cases against him, including some cases under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985; Nitin Phogat, a motorcycle mechanic with a criminal record; and two minors — a promising javelin thrower and a daily-wage labourer. Their alleged fifth accomplice, Shivam of Nuh, was critically injured and has since been shifted out of the Intensive Care Unit.

The police said the attack was ordered by Deepak Nandal, a music director-turned-gangster who allegedly runs an extortion racket from abroad. The target was businessman Vishal Berry, who had reportedly received extortion calls.

The First Information Report, in which Nandal has been named as an accused, said that the police acted on intelligence about a possible attack. It read: “There was input that the Deepak Nandal gang might target and kill individuals to whom he had made extortion calls. We got further intelligence that an attack was planned today on Vishal Berry’s residence in Sushant Lok Phase-I.”

At 9:22 p.m., a wireless alert flagged a black sport utility vehicle (SUV) carrying about four armed men on National Highway-48. Three Crime Branch teams led by sub-inspectors moved in and surrounded Berry’s house.

Twenty-eight minutes later, the SUV rolled in, with its number plates crisscrossed with strips of black tape. The police said they spotted five youths inside. Three jumped out from the middle row and one from the front, before unleashing a volley towards Berry’s house and neighbouring homes. One of them recorded the assault on his phone, the FIR said.

“When challenged, the accused fired at the police to escape. The police team retaliated,” Assistant Commissioner of Police (Crime) Naveen Sharma said. He later told reporters that five modern pistols, live ammunition, and the SUV allegedly used in the crime had been seized.

A village thrust into the spotlight

The news hit like a thunderclap in Bhalaut, a Jat-dominated village of more than 10,000 people on the Rohtak-Sonipat road, about 90 kilometres from Gurugram. Three of the village’s young men had been shot dead in the encounter. Two of them — the javelin thrower and the daily-wage worker — were minors with no prior criminal record, said both the police and their families. The third, Nitin, 22, had two cases against him in Rohtak for attempted murder and illegal possession of arms.

The village is grappling with grief, anger, and disbelief. For years, Bhalaut had not been in the headlines, locals said. Except for one murder over personal enmity a few months ago, the village had largely kept its name out of crime reports. That changed on July 9.

“Crime and gang violence have finally found their way here too,” rued Vinod Sheoran, a 40-year-old mason, sitting at a roadside tea stall in the village. “We have heard of shootings all around. But Bhalaut? Never thought it would happen to us.”

The three dead were cremated together on July 10. Sitting with a group of men around a hookah outside a juice shop, Rajender, a 30-year-old resident of Bhalaut, said the entire village turned up for the cremation. “Har gali mein policewale khade the. Maine itni police kabhi nahi dekhi gaon mein (The police were standing in every street. I have never seen so many police personnel in the village),” he said. “This many people never came even for a Sarpanch’s funeral,” he added.

Villagers said they are appalled by police claims linking the trio to gangster Nandal and an extortion plot in Gurugram. What hurts more, they said, is the speed with which the narrative shifted from “our boys” to “gang members”. Talk of the alleged encounter has dominated every chaupal — the traditional village meeting place — and sweet shop in Bhalaut, with all the residents asking one question: how did three young men from the village end up in the middle of a 60-round gunfight in Sushant Lok?

Glitz and guns

The incident has also left the elite neighbourhood of Sushant Lok Phase-I in Gurugram shaken. A resident whose house is 70-80 metres from the site of the alleged encounter recalled the shootout, saying he first heard a burst of gunfire between 9:45 p.m. and 10 p.m.

“I had just finished dinner when I heard cracker-like sounds,” he said. “They were unusual; not like Diwali firecrackers. The firing happened in quick succession and went on for about two-three minutes. Maybe there were 15-20 rounds? Then it reduced to random shots and gradually died down. Even after 10:30 p.m. there were one or two single shots.”

Around 10 p.m., two men arrived at his back gate and later approached the front door. Identifying themselves as Crime Branch officers, they showed him an ID card, shared a phone number, and asked for his CCTV digital video recorder (DVR).

“I let them in and they took the DVR themselves,” the resident said. He said police have not returned it yet. When he visited the traffic police headquarters, officers told him he would get it in a couple of days.

The resident said he noticed no prior police presence or announcement. “They seemed prepared, like they were ready for an encounter.”

Deputy Commissioner of Police, Crime, Hitesh Yadav told The Hindu that the businessman was in Delhi at the time of attack, while his wife and brothers-in-law were inside the house.

Berry had received a ₹5 crore extortion call from Nandal 4-5 days before the Sushant Lok shootout but did not inform the police, sources from the Special Task Force (STF) told The Hindu.

“Two days before the attack, we had credible input about a planned hit on his Gurugram home and shared it with Crime Branch,” said a senior STF officer.

Extortion rackets in Haryana

According to the STF, Nandal, a music director from Rohtak, turned to crime after financial disputes. He flew to Dubai in July 2024 on a passport with a Gurugram address and to the U.K. in June 2025. His current location is unknown. He is wanted in 10 criminal cases, including four extortion and three murder/attempt to murder cases.

STF Inspector-General Sateesh Balan said some 10 fugitives were running extortion rackets in Haryana from abroad. “They hire unemployed, gullible youth through social media and old contacts. They lure them with money or promises of quick gains to carry out shootings, create terror, and extort money from businessmen, doctors, and politicians,” he said.

Balan added that gangs preferred juveniles with no criminal records because they faced less severe punishment. Extortion calls were made using VPNs or “dabba calling” to conceal locations, he said.

Opposition parties in Haryana, including the Congress, have accused the government of failing to curb what they describe as an increase in mafia activity, gang wars, and extortion in the State. They have cited recent incidents such as the firing at Congress Meham MLA Balram Dangi’s office and the shooting outside YouTuber Elvish Yadav’s Gurugram residence over alleged extortion demands as evidence of a deteriorating law-and-order situation. They have staged protest marches to the State Assembly and disrupted legislative sessions to demand urgent, high-level debates on policing failures.

Nandal’s name had also surfaced in connection with a gun attack on Haryanvi rapper Fazilpuria’s car on Gurugram’s Southern Peripheral Road in July 2025. The attack had allegedly stemmed from Fazilpuria’s failure to repay ₹5 crore that he had borrowed from Nandal, according to STF sources. Rohit Shaukeen, a property dealer, financier, and close childhood friend of Fazilpuria, was later shot dead in broad daylight in Sector 77, Gurugram.

Unanswered questions

At the home of the 17-year-old javelin thrower killed in the alleged encounter, there is anger and grief. The boy’s uncle, a Haryana Roadways employee in his 50s, broke down saying, “The police did what they had to. The entire system is against us. We are poor, helpless people. This was a stage-managed encounter.”

The family disputed the police account of a gunfight. “The mortuary allowed us to see the body. He had four bullet wounds — three in the chest near the nipples and one in the neck. All the bullets had passed through him. That happens only when there is firing at point-blank range,” the uncle claimed. He added that several policemen familiar with the family, since the boy’s grandfather had served in the Haryana Police, shared this suspicion.

The family also demanded to know how the SUV entered Sushant Lok. “The entry to that colony has boom barriers and 24×7 security. Usually, registration numbers are noted. How was a vehicle with taped number plates even allowed inside,” the uncle asked.

The boy’s father, who runs an e-rickshaw repair and charging shop in Rohtak, asked why the police did not shoot to disable him. He said, “They told us he had six bullet wounds. Why did my son have them in the chest and not the legs?”

He described his son as “docile” and “promising” — a Class 12 student who had won gold in javelin and silver in the 100-metre event at a national meet organised by a private federation in Uttar Pradesh just days earlier. “I bought him shoes worth ₹20,000 two days before this,” he said.

Bhim Awardee Sunil Phogat, a junior Haryana government coach, said he had trained the boy for two years at the Rajiv Gandhi Sports Complex in Rohtak. “He came twice daily with his cousin. He was sincere and disciplined. There were no complaints against him,” Phogat said.

A neighbour, chemist Sandeep Phogat, said: “The family has had no criminal record for generations. He trusted the wrong people and paid the price.”

While Sunil Phogat posted a video after the alleged encounter urging youths to stay away from drugs, the boy’s father blamed unchecked drug abuse for the situation. “Gaon ke har chautha-panchwa ladka ganja peeta hai. Sabko pata hai kaun bech raha hai, lekin police kuch nahi karti (Every fourth or fifth boy in this village is smoking weed. Everyone knows who is selling it, but the police don’t do anything),” he said.

The father said he used to keep a close watch on his son, who was not allowed to have his own phone or use social media. The boy used his mother’s phone and shared his live location with the family.

The father said on July 9, his son had gone to get his motorcycle repaired at Nitin’s shop. Minutes after he spoke to him and told him to come home, the two left on a bike and sped away.

“We went to the police to file a complaint fearing they would do something wrong. The police told us to wait,” he said. The family learned of the deaths when the Gurugram Police contacted the Sarpanch, Kuldeep Phogat. He said, “Nitin had rented the SUV from Rohtak saying he was going to Haridwar. The owner of the vehicle had Nitin’s video, photos, and ID. That’s how the Gurugram Police reached us.”

At Nitin’s baithak, his father Sanjay was preparing a hookah for the mourners. Talking of the police version, he said, “They showed us nothing except a dark video of masked men firing. You couldn’t even identify who they were.” He claimed that the police shot the three 21 times.

In the village’s Valmiki mohalla for Scheduled Caste families, the grandfather of the third youth, a daily-wage worker, first said the family doesn’t want to talk. A 65-year-old supervisor at a firm in Mumbai, he then added that the boy was likely lured into this. “He said he was going to Haridwar. He went last year too, so we didn’t suspect anything. We don’t know what they offered him,” he said.

The boy had dropped out of school after completing Class 9 last year. The family’s neighbour, 30-year-old Monu, who runs a meat shop, called the boy “simple” and “free from manipulation.” He said the boy worked as a daily-wage labourer and herded goats when there was no other work.

A cousin of the boy said angrily: “The police are patting themselves on their backs for killing a poor boy. The real culprit is Nandal. Arrest him, or more innocent lives will be lost.”

Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime) Hitesh Yadav did not respond to specific questions raised by the families of the deceased regarding the alleged encounter. He said the investigation was still underway and that several aspects were yet to be verified. He added that the ages of the two minors were also being verified.

He, however, gave a warning: “No one will be allowed to have a free pass in Gurugram and the law will take its own course.”