Overview
- Salim Wastik, who was taken into custody Saturday in Loni, Ghaziabad, has been remanded to judicial custody in Tihar Jail.
- He is Salim Khan, convicted in 1997 for kidnapping and murdering 13-year-old Sandeep Bansal after a Rs 30,000 ransom call in 1995.
- He jumped interim bail in 2000, then lived under new names, declared himself dead in records, moved across Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, and later built a public profile as a YouTuber and social activist in Loni.
- Crime Branch officers confirmed his identity using old photographs and fingerprint records after a tip from head constable Mintu Yadav, and a team led by Inspector Robin Tyagi made the arrest.
- Weeks earlier, he survived a February 27 stabbing at his Loni office, and the two accused brothers were later killed in separate Uttar Pradesh police encounters in a sequence that renewed scrutiny of his background.