854 people held under Operation Gang-Bust 2026 in 2 days: Delhi Police
New Delhi (PTI): The Delhi Police has rounded up and arrested 854 people and registered 690 FIRs during a massive, 48-hour anti-organised crime crackdown under their Operation Gang-Bust 2026, carried out across six states ahead of the Republic Day celebrations, officials said.
"This was one of the most extensive coordinated exercises in recent years, conducted from 8 pm on January 9 to 8 pm on January 11, to dismantle organised crime syndicates with footprints in the national capital and the National Capital Region (NCR)," Additional Commissioner of Police (Special Cell) Pramod Singh Kushwah said.
The officer said that more than 9,000 personnel drawn from district units, the Crime Branch and the Special Cell were deployed simultaneously to conduct raids on hideouts of major and minor gangs. The coordinated action covered Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.
"In just 48 hours, over 4,000 hideouts of organised crime syndicates were raided, and more than 6,500 targeted people were rounded up and apprehended for questioning," said the Additional CP.
He said that sustained field-level coordination was ensured to prevent suspects from escaping or going underground.
As a result of the intensive crackdown, 690 cases were registered under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, Arms Act, NDPS Act, Delhi Excise Act, Public Gambling Act and other relevant laws. Of those apprehended, 854 people were rounded up or arrested.
The police also released a gang-wise breakdown of arrests of shooters and active members of major and minor gangs. A total of 280 arrests were linked to identified gangs, while 207 arrests involved members of minor gangs operating in and around the capital.
Police said the arrested people included shooters, facilitators, logistics providers and associates involved in extortion, arms trafficking, drug peddling and other serious offences.
Police said that during the raids, under the Arms Act alone, 286 cases were registered and 300 persons arrested, leading to the recovery of 122 firearms, 189 knives, 129 rounds of ammunition, over 110 mobile phones and cash exceeding Rs 15 lakh. Two motorcycles and a scooter were also seized in these cases.
In NDPS-related action, 36 cases were registered and 43 persons arrested. The police recovered over 114 kg of cannabis, cocaine, heroin and charas, as well as cough syrup bottles, tramadol capsules, alprazolam tablets and buprenorphine tablets and injections. Cash amounting to over Rs 4.6 lakh, along with a car and a scooter, was also seized.
Action under the Delhi Excise Act resulted in 145 cases and 152 arrests, with the recovery of 28,364 quarters of illicit liquor, cash and vehicles. In addition, 137 cases were registered under the Public Gambling Act, leading to 285 arrests and the seizure of over Rs 5.5 lakh in cash. Under various BNS provisions, 86 cases were registered and 74 arrests made, with recoveries including cash, knives, mobile phones and motorcycles, police said.
Cumulatively, the operation led to the seizure of arms, ammunition, narcotic drugs weighing around 117 kg, psychotropic substances, illicit liquor, multiple vehicles and cash totalling over Rs 25.75 lakh, the police said.
Sharing details of last year's operations, the officer said that in the four-month period between September 1 and December 31, the Delhi Police carried out a series of targeted actions against gangsters and their networks.
During that period, seven gangsters were killed, and 21 were injured in exchanges of fire with the police. A total of 34 gangsters were arrested in cases under the MCOCA, while 149 were arrested in non-MCOCA cases. Two gangsters were deported from abroad, and trial in absentia proceedings were initiated against nine absconding accused.
Additional CP Kushwah said that 539 homes and hideouts linked to organised crime syndicates were raided during the four-month drive, leading to the recovery of 118 arms.
"Cash worth Rs 1.014 crore was seized, along with properties including 1.3 kg of gold, 14 kg of silver, eight cars, 11 motorcycles, 22 mobile phones and a laptop was seized," he said.
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Audit flags manipulation in Bihar Assembly polls, alleges mass disenfranchisement, data suppression
New Delhi: A detailed audit of the 2025 Bihar Legislative Assembly elections has raised grave concerns about the integrity of India’s electoral process, alleging large-scale voter disenfranchisement, opaque administrative actions and post-poll data manipulation. The report, titled The Bihar Verdict 2025, has been prepared by Vote for Democracy (VFD), Maharashtra, and is based entirely on official data released by the Election Commission of India, statutory provisions, constitutional norms and documented numerical inconsistencies.
According to the report, what unfolded in Bihar was not a series of isolated irregularities or clerical lapses, but a pattern of systemic electoral engineering that effectively hollowed out the democratic process before, during and after polling. The audit argues that the right of citizens to choose their representatives was undermined long before election day through voter roll manipulation, statistical anomalies and the withdrawal of transparency mechanisms.
The report has been authored and compiled by VFD under the guidance of former bureaucrat M. G. Devasahayam, founder of the Forum for Electoral Integrity, along with Pyara Lal Garg, Harish Karnick and Madhav Deshpande.
At the centre of the audit is the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls notified by the ECI on June 24, 2025, just months before the Assembly elections. While electoral rolls undergo periodic revision, the report notes that Bihar’s rolls had already been under continuous revision since 2003, with a Special Summary Revision completed in January 2025. Despite this, a fresh and sweeping revision was undertaken without any recorded justification, disclosed empirical basis or transparent methodology.
The report contends that the timing and scale of the SIR violated statutory safeguards under the Representation of the People Act, 1950 and the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, while also undermining constitutional guarantees under Articles 14, 19, 21, 325 and 326. It further states that the revision reversed the democratic presumption of inclusion, effectively shifting the burden onto voters to prove their eligibility through a process resembling citizenship verification, without legislative backing.
The impact, the audit says, was immediate and severe. Official ECI data shows that Bihar had 7.89 crore registered voters on June 24, 2025. By the draft roll published on August 1, the electorate had dropped to 7.24 crore, reflecting the deletion of 65.69 lakh voters. The final roll released on September 30 stood at about 7.42 crore electors. However, the report points out that only 3.66 lakh voters were ultimately found to be ineligible, making the scale of deletions nearly twenty times higher than the number justified.
One of the most striking phases occurred between July 21 and July 25, 2025, when more than 21.27 lakh voters were deleted in just three days. During this short period, 5.44 lakh voters were marked as dead, 14.24 lakh as permanently shifted, and those labelled “untraceable” increased by 809 per cent overnight. Despite the SIR being publicly justified as an exercise to remove foreigners from the rolls, the report notes that not a single foreign national was identified.
According to the audit, such figures defy administrative logic and statistical probability, suggesting bulk or algorithm-driven deletions rather than genuine field verification. It argues that the exercise amounted to mass disenfranchisement hidden within official processes.
Following public criticism, the ECI stated that it had received around 17 lakh objections or applications and carried out rectifications. However, the report documents that nearly 22 lakh entries were modified, far exceeding the number of applications claimed. Even after accounting for these corrections, the roll should have mathematically stood at around 7.38 crore voters. Instead, the final figure was declared as 7.42 crore, leaving an unexplained surplus of 3.24 lakh electors. The report notes that no reconciliation statement, independent audit or transparent explanation has been provided for this discrepancy.
The audit further highlights that voter rolls continued to change even after elections were notified, contrary to established legal convention. On October 6, 2025, the electorate stood at 7.43 crore, but by polling day it had increased to 7.46 crore. In just ten days, 3.34 lakh voters were added, including a sudden spike in young voters, which the report says is statistically impossible given eligibility timelines.
Beyond voter rolls, the report points to structural issues in election management. The number of polling booths increased sharply from 77,462 during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections to 90,740 in Bihar 2025, without a corresponding expansion in remote or riverine areas. This, the report argues, raises questions about constituency and booth-level engineering.
The Election Commission’s approach to data disclosure also came under scrutiny. Constituency-wise turnout figures and final votes polled before counting, data that had been routinely published in earlier elections were withheld. Instead, only fragmented district-level data was released, making independent verification difficult, if not impossible.
At the grassroots level, the report flags the deployment of around 1.8 lakh “Jeevika Didis” as poll volunteers. These women are beneficiaries of state welfare schemes involving cash transfers, and the report argues that their use blurred the line between welfare delivery and election administration, compromising institutional neutrality. The imbalance in Booth Level Agents further exacerbated the issue, with the ruling alliance deploying more than 91,000 agents while the opposition averaged just 1.55 agents per booth, leaving large sections of polling stations effectively unmonitored.
Polling and counting days were marked by multiple alleged violations, including CCTV failures, VVPAT slips reportedly found discarded on roads, unauthorised vehicles near strong rooms and the transportation of about 6,000 voters from Haryana via special trains, allegedly with free tickets.
The most consequential development, the audit says, came after polling had concluded. On November 12, 2025, official data recorded a uniform 0.18 per cent increase in voter turnout, identical for both men and women across phases. This so-called “midnight hike” added 1,34,145 votes and is said to have altered outcomes in around 20 constituencies. In 21 seats, victory margins ranged from zero to just 15 votes, yet no automatic VVPAT recount was ordered.
The report concludes that the Bihar election represents a new mode of electoral manipulation, carried out not through overt coercion or violence, but through administrative opacity, legal manoeuvring and control over data. It warns that what happened in Bihar is not an isolated aberration but a template that threatens the constitutional promise of universal adult suffrage.
According to the authors, when voters disappear from rolls without explanation, when official numbers fail basic arithmetic tests and when transparency is treated as expendable, the casualty is not just an election result but democracy itself.
