Women have been making a mark in all other fields, so why not crime? Just ask Uttar Pradesh Police, who are chasing down a list of 10 most wanted women who carry cash rewards, ranging from Rs 50,000 to Rs 5 lakh, for their capture. Of these 10, eight remain elusive.
Top of the list is Deepti Bahl, one of the four prime accused in the UP Bike Bot scam. Her group allegedly committed a fraud of over Rs 15,000 crore in Noida and Ghaziabad. Bahl carries a cash reward of Rs 5 lakh on her head.
Deepti Bahl
Deepti Bahl, wife of prime accused Sanjay Bhati in the 2019 Bike Bot Scam, is among the few names in the UP Police list of most-wanted criminals to carry a cash reward of Rs 5 lakh. Others to carry a similar sum for their capture are Meerut gangster Badan Singh (Badoo) and the three close aides of Atiq Ahmed –Guddu Muslim, Mohammed Sabir and Arman.
The Bike Bot scam was unearthed by the CBI, which alleged that Sanjay Bhati and his wife Deepti Bahl had allegedly duped over 2 lakh investors to the tune of Rs 15,000 crore through a simple investment scheme that promised high returns. Under the scam, the investor was promised a return of over Rs 1 lakh per annum on a bare minimum investment. However, when the company failed to give the promised returns, over 2 lakh investors lodged a police complaint. Deepti Bahl has been at large since 2019, while Sanjay Bhati and others were arrested.
Afsa Ansari
Next comes the wife of mafia-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari, Afsa Ansari. She is wanted in multiple cases, including under the Gangster Act. Police have also increased the cash reward on her head to Rs 75,000.
Afsa Ansari, a housewife and mother of two, is wanted in three major cases, including two cases of land grabbing in Chhavni Line and Babeddi localities. On January 31, 2022, a case was registered under Gangster Act at Mau’s Dakshin Tola Police Station. Afsa’s family has also been linked to criminal activities in various districts of UP. Afsa’s brothers, Atif Raza alias Sharjil Raza and Anwar Shahzad, are also allegedly absconding. She has two sons — Abbas Ansari and Umar Ansari.
Shaista Parveen
Afsa Ansari’s name is followed by that of don-turned-politician Atiq Ahmed’s wife Shaista Parveen, who carries a reward of Rs 50,000. Parveen, who is a prime accused in the Umesh Pal murder case, was born and brought up in the family of a head constable. She has been in regular touch with her lawyers and has been filing pleas and applications in different courts of India, including the Supreme Court, in order to save herself and her family from police action.
She, however, did not turn up when her third son Asad, who allegedly led the team of assailants in Umesh Pal’s murder, was gunned down in a police encounter on April 13, 2023 or when her husband Atiq Ahmad and his brother Ashraf were murdered by three assailants in police custody in the presence of several mediapersons outside a Prayagraj hospital on April 15, 2023.
Her phone was reportedly switched off two days after she was accused in the Umesh Pal murder case and her name was added in the FIR. UP Police have now resorted to electronic surveillance and pressed into service undercover agents to arrest Parveen.
Ayesha Noori and Daughters Unzela & Mantasha
Other than Parveen, a manhunt is also underway to nab Zainab Fatima, wife of Atiq Ahmed’s younger brother Khalid Azeem aka Ashraf, and their sister Ayesha Noori and her two daughters Unzela and Mantasha in connection with the February 24, 2023 triple murders of lawyer Umesh Pal and his two police guards in Prayagraj. Sources said a special team of cops, including those who will go undercover, has been deputed in plain clothes in rural areas of Prayagraj and Kaushambi where they have relatives.
Payal Maheshwari
Payal Maheshwari, the wife of Mukhtar Ansari’s close aide Sanjeev Maheshwari, is wanted in a case of UP Gangsters Act in Muzaffarnagar. In April, police sealed a commercial complex in Muzaffarnagar in the name of Sanjeev’s wife under provisions of the Gangsters Act.
Neelam Verma and Geeta Tiwari
In some measure of success in trimming the list, UP Police recently arrested two women — Neelam Verma, the director of Hello Ride, and Geeta Tiwari, Gorakhpur’s first female don.
Neelam Verma, the director of Hello Ride, a bike-taxi company operating from Lucknow, was arrested by the UP STF in Lucknow in July. She was allegedly involved in a fraud of over Rs 100 crore and had been elusive since 2019. Verma is wanted in 23 criminal cases registered in Lucknow and carried a reward of Rs 25,000 on her head.
Geeta Tiwari is the last name on the list of wanted women criminals in UP. She has been lodged in Deoria Jail since November for an alleged attempt to murder. Police said that she has been booked under Gangster Act and has been named in around eight cases, largely that of robbery and loot. According to the police, she killed two men at the birthday party of her relative in Gorakhpur in 2020.
She used to live in a shelter home until she got married to a social worker named Shivkumar Tiwari in 2009. The duo, who used to play orchestra, soon started peddling drugs, some of which was seized when their house was raided. She took over the business in 2016 after the death of her husband. This was the first time she was sent to jail.
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