The 30-year-old and associate Rajesh Sharma, 26, were killed in an encounter the Badarpur area of South Delhi.

Four police officers, too, suffered injuries in the encounter.

The tip-off came at 3 am: Bunty and Sharma were hiding at H-211/97, Saurabh Vihar, Jaitpur village. “We reached Jaitpur village around 4 am,” said Suresh Kaushik, SHO Nizamuddin and one of the team members.

The 35-member team cordoned off the area first but, officers said, before the police team could give them a chance to surrender, Bunty and Rajesh opened fire. The police fired in return. “There were about 26 rounds of fire,” Police Commissioner Y S Dadwal said.

SHO Kaushik said, “Initially we fired through the two windows in the house; then one of us broke open the main door and, when we entered, Bunty fired several rounds. But we escaped since we were wearing bullet-proof jackets.”

The two were gunned down soon. This was past 5 am.

In the hour-long encounter, four police officials — SHO Suresh Kaushik, ASI Ashok Kumar, and Constables Virender and Raghubir received injuries on their hands. Kaushik was discharged after preliminary medication; the others are undergoing treatment.

Bunty and Rajesh, too, were taken to AIIMS but succumbed to injuries on the way. “Bunty was alive even at the AIIMS entrance,” DCP (South) H G S Dhaliwal said. “He was breathing on the way to hospital but succumbed just as the vehicle reached AIIMS.”

Officers said a motorcycle (DL 7S AZ 1796), which Bunty used to commit crimes after changing the registration number plate to HR-06 P 6375, was recovered — it was parked just outside the house.

Dadwal said Bunty hid in different NCR areas for the past two months or so but returned to Delhi “since he feared that one of his gang members, who was arrested earlier, could tip off the police about his whereabouts. Bunty had himself cooped up in the Jaitpur house for the past three or four days, Dadwal said.

He said the gang was on Delhi Police’s radar over the past two months, and as the chase intensified Bunty had taken to committing petty crimes in areas around the Capital. Recently, the gang reportedly attempted a bank robbery in Karnal that went awry after a security guard opened fire.

Post-gunbattle, police recovered three foreign-made 9 mm pistols along with four magazines, four countrymade pistols, 18 live cartridges, 26 empty cartridges, two knives, a khukhri, and a mobile phone.