For the past 24 hours, drone was flying on the sugarcane fields to trace out Johnny but there was no success

BIJNOR: Bijnor police on Wednesday deployed drone and Rapid Action Force (RAF) after past 50 hours of relentless combing to trace Ashwani alias Johnny Dada — an alleged drug addict who is an accused in three murders in a span of five days in the district — yielded no results.

Fond of uploading TikTok videos portraying himself as villain, Ashwini's digital footprints also include Facebook posts with messages suggesting of vengeance: “Devil is ready now”, “Wait and watch- I will destroy everything” and “See my havoc”. With no past criminal record, he seems to have stretched his online ‘villain character’ into real. His ‘victims’ include son and nephew of a BJP leader and of a 27 year-old-woman.

According to police, on Wednesday his location was detected in the vast farmlands of Bijnor’s Syohara region where he had pumped bullets into the woman three days ago in an alleged one-sided-affair, and hence police deployed drone to trace him. For the past 24 hours, drone was flying on the sugarcane fields to trace out Johnny but there was no success.

He has been eluding cops from 21 police stations who have been divided into 15 teams and combing the entire area for the past 50 hours. On Wednesday, 135 RAF personnel were also deployed.

According to sources, Ashwini knows the mobile technology well and is aware about the tactics used by police to track criminals through surveillance. “Police are trying to trace out Johnny on the likely place. We have deployed drone to track him down. Besides, his posters were also pasted in neighbouring villages. I hope we will arrest him soon,” Bijno SP Sanjeev Tyagi said.

Police have picked up some suspects who are stated to be close to him. They are trying to find out how did he come to know about the presence of Nitika at her house in native village Daulatabad. She was working in Dubai and recently shifted to the village for her wedding. Johnny allegedly barged into Nitika house on Monday and shot at her. She died later in hospital. On Thursday, he had allegedly shot Rahul Kumar (25) and Krishna Kumar (26), son and nephew of a BJP leader in his own village Barhpur.

According to Nitika’s family, Ashwini had made advances and was spurned by her in 2002 when he used to frequent her uncle’s place in Daulatabad. Later, she shifted to Dubai and settled there.

Sources told TOI that Johnny had come to Daultabad some days ago. Later he posted on facebook, ‘I will destroy everything. My last greeting to all’. Police are keeping a close eye on deceased NItika’s native village Daultabad village and Johnny’s town Barhapur.

