Pradeep Sharma set to return to police force?

Former police officer Pradeep Sharma, one of the famed `encounter specialists' of Mumbai police, would be reinstated soon, a source said today.

Inspector Sharma had been dismissed in 2008.

The state home department has cleared his reinstatement, and he will join the force after some formalities are completed, a senior police official said.

Sharma, who joined the police force in 1983, was credited with several `encounter' deaths in Mumbai before his dismissal from the service in 2008 for alleged links with the Dawood Ibrahim gang and his role in the Lakhan Bhaiyya fake encounter, the official said.

Sharma was arrested in Lakhan Bhaiyya case in 2010 alongwith 21 others.

While 13 policemen were convicted in the case in July 2013, Sharma was acquitted by the court.

(This article has not been edited by DNA's editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)