Lucknow, Jun 20 (IANS): The Uttar Pradesh Police have once again intensified its crackdown on criminals. Over the past 15 days, after the conclusion of the Lok Sabha polls, police have conducted 79 rapid operations, dealing a significant blow to criminal activities across the state.

A state government spokesman said that during these operations conducted from June 4 to June 19, two notorious criminals have been killed, while 96 criminals have been injured.

During the period, 139 criminals have been arrested while seven policemen have been injured in these encounters.

According to Director General of Police (DGP) Prashant Kumar, action is continuously going on against 68 state-level identified mafia gang members and associates.

"So far, action has been taken against 9 members of various mafia gangs at various levels. Out of these, three have been arrested, while action has been taken against 1 under the Gangster Act and 2 under the Goonda Act," he said.

He further noted that following extensive court proceedings, Bhadohi's mafia Vijay Mishra was sentenced on June 13 in a pending case.

Meanwhile, police achieved a significant breakthrough by arresting Vinay Tyagi alias Tinku, a mafia with a bounty of Rs 50,000 on his head from Muzaffarnagar.

He said that a reward of Rs 25,000 was placed on Asif alias Pappu Smart, a dreaded member of Kanpur's Saud Akhtar gang, who has since been apprehended by the police.

Furthermore, the Special Task Force (STF) successfully apprehended Utkarsh Singh, an active member of Ambedkar Nagar's Ajay Singh Sipahi gang. Utkarsh also carried a bounty of Rs 25,000 placed on him.

In addition to these operations, authorities confiscated 4.4570 hectares of land belonging to Muzaffarnagar's notorious mafia Sushil Moonchh, estimated at Rs 4.5 crore.

Meanwhile, Jaunpur's infamous criminal Prashant Singh Prince and Muzaffarnagar's Nilesh Rai were killed in separate police encounters.