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Afghanistan-Pak-India

Dreaded mustachioed dacoit gunned down in India

2005-11-08

NEW DELHI - One of India's most wanted bandits was shot dead in a fierce gun battle with a special force, police said on Tuesday. Dreaded dacoit Nirbhar Gujjar had terrorised villagers in the ravines of central Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh states for over a decade. He was wanted in connection with two dozen murders and more than 200 kidnappings. The government had announced a reward of 4,360 U.S. dollars for Gujjar.

A special police task force had set up an ambush for the dacoit Monday. He walked into the trap and was killed after a gun battle with the police late in the evening that lasted for more than an hour, senior police official Akhil Kumar said. He said the operation was carried out in the jungles near Sitapur village in western Uttar Pradesh.

Gujjar, famous for his handlebar moustache and fondness for mobile phones, was a media savvy dacoit. He often gave television interviews during which he boasted of high-level political connections. His gang was armed with heavy automatic weapons. They amassed a fortune by kidnapping small businessmen and wealthy local farmers for a ransom, the police said. The police had been on Gujjar's trail for over a decade but the chase had heated up over the past month with the killing and capture of several of his close associates, Kumar said.

The topography of the 37,000 square-kilometre Chambal valley with criss-crossing ravines and dense forests, spread across Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh states, makes it especially difficult for the police to track the many dacoit gangs operating in the region.

India's most famous dacoit Phoolan Devi, the famous "Bandit Queen", also operated in this area. She went on to become a member of Parliament after her surrender. Devi was shot dead outside her official residence in the Indian capital by a gunman in 2001. Another famous brigand, sandalwood smuggler Veerappan, was killed by the police in southern India last year.

Posted by:Steve

#2 Silence in Chambal

The elimination of Nirbhay Gujjar on Monday evening by the Special Task Force of Uttar Pradesh marks the closure of an age in the Chambal ravines. Though essentially a brigand who terrorised the region much like his infamous predecessors like Man Singh, Roopa and Phoolan Devi, Nirbhay was, even to his victims, a baaghi - or rebel; a victim of circumstances.

Villagers often spun romantic yarns about the supposed valour and hidden virtues of the Chambal dacoits. Thanks to Bollywood and the media, these tales travelled far and wide to cast the Chambal dacoits in the Robin Hood mould. Indeed, Man Singh, who met his end at the hands of the police in 1955, is today worshiped as god in his 'exclusive' temple. Like the legendary Prince of Thieves, Man Singh robbed the rich to serve the poor. If a poor farmer faced a problem, especially in raising money for the marriage of his daughter, Man Singh was reputed to step in to help him make the 'necessary arrangements'.

Tales of such philanthropy invariably got laced with considerations of family honour and caste loyalty to produce the Chambal mystique, which Nirbhay Gujjar inherited. The vermillion on his brow and a mop-like beard added to his image. Though mostly unlettered and steeped in backwardness, the outlaws of Chambal had an almost mystical understanding of time and place which they exploited to the hilt with deadly accuracy.

Much like Veerappan in the south, Nirbhay Gujjar knew the power of television in the game to court post-surrender moolah or, in the likely event of a bloody end, immortality and a cult-following. In short, after the Himalayan Yogi, the brawny wrestler on the ghats of Varanasi and the doughty Kolkata rickshaw-puller, the cocky Chambal ka daku completed the great Indian kaleidoscope of earthy masculinity. It's indeed difficult to strike a balance between the priorities of the Indian state and the cautious romanticism with which they are held in the collective perception.

But Nirbhay Gujjar had to go and there can be no requiem for a man who had 191 cases of murder and abduction against his name. Several members of his gang had been killed before him but Nirbhay Gujjar somehow managed to elude the police. He had, perhaps, foreseen his fate and had sought to use the media to win a reprieve-through-surrender for himself. But past experience has made the law enforcers wiser. Men like Nirbhay Gujjar know how to manipulate Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence.

The trial process invariably gets delayed by witness intimidation or procedural lapses. Even if they are sent to jail, men like Nirbhay Gujjar manage to milk the system to their advantage. Besides, whatever romantic notions the public held earlier thanks to an efficient 'root cause' industry have been dispelled after successive Governments granted amnesty to dacoits in lieu of their giving up arms. In our own times, dreaded dacoits have been known to go on to become ministers and members of Parliament. Nirbhay Gujjar, therefore, passes into oblivion as just another statistic. Only time will tell whether he was the stuff of legends.

Posted by: john 2005-11-08 20:14

#1 Police mole, cellphone did in Nirbhay Gujjar

The age-old 'mole in the gang' and the new age 'surveillance on wire' combined to be a fatal potion for dreaded Chambal dacoit Nirbhay Gujjar.

Before stepping into the elaborate trap laid by the elite Special Task Force (STF) at Ajitmal in Etawah district of Uttar Pradesh on Monday night, the brigand had had more than his fill of his two passions -- wine and women.

In fact, deserted by his fairer partners and running short of men, Nirbhay Gujjar's end was facilitated by one of his weaknesses -- liquor --which the trailing STF exploited to the hilt, combining traditional and pragmatic police skills.

Well-placed sources revealed that Nirbhay Gujjar was done in by the guile of a raw recruit of the STF who slithered into the gang posing as an absconder and took nearly two months to win the trust of the wily dacoit. In the meantime, the 'plant' passed on valuable information about the movements of the brigand and his handful of accomplices through a cellphone.

All this while, Special Task Force SSP Akhil Kumar camped in nearby Etawah bordering the Chambal-Yamuna ravines keeping a tab on the beeps of Gujjar's cellphones. The self-styled 'raja' of the ravines had recently picked up the fad for cellphones and possessed two connections - one for UP and the other for MP.

The nonchalant brigand, who was all the time trailed by the UP and MP police, frequently kept in touch with his associates and journalists over the phones. Little did he realise the associated pitfalls
staring his fate like others of his ilk who were done in by electronic surveillance in the past.

The efficacy of the electronic gadget notwithstanding, what actually did the trick for the STF sleuths was the age-old policing axiom of planting an effective 'mole' within the gang. And this ploy succeeded. The mole accompanied Nirbhay Gujjar and his motley crew till Ayana where he got them drunk before alerting the waiting STF team to pounce on the inebriated 'kill'. The result was that the sozzled bandit king with 205 criminal cases against him and a cash reward of Rs 2.5 lakh on his head, was caught unawares and perished but not before living life kingsize.

Earlier, too, the police gameplan of using an informer or even a cop had paid rich dividends especially in the treacherous badlands of the Chambal-Yamuna ravines.

In 1997, the Hamirpur Police quietly pushed a cop into the gang of dreaded dacoit Balram Khangar. Within a few months, the cop had managed to win the trust of the members. One day, the cop intoxicated the gang members and tipped off headquarters. When the police raided the hideout, eight dacoits including Balram and his concubine Rekha were snuffed out in the ensuing 'encounter'.

In the beginning of 2002, Kanpur Dehat SSP Mukesh Babu Shukla planted constable Mahabharat Singh in the formidable Lalaram gang. Within a month, six members of the gang including the kingpin fell to police bullets.

Two years back, Auraiya SP Nilesh Kumar adopted the same strategy to counter the growing menace of the Man Singh Mukhia gang which had become synonymous with terror in the area. A cop was meticulously planted and after several painstaking months of tailing the dacoit gang, Mukhia, along with his paramour Gudia and two others were gunned down.

Posted by: john 2005-11-08 20:13

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