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India-Pakistan
Police re-arrest alleged killer of ‘bandit queen’
2006-04-26
Indian police have re-arrested the alleged killer of India’s famous “bandit queen”, who made a daring escape™ from a high-security prison two years ago, police said on Tuesday. Sher Singh Rana, who was awaiting trial for the murder of low-caste women’s icon Phoolan Devi when he fled, was arrested in the eastern metropolis of Kolkata late Monday, a spokesman said.
There was a ear-shattering blast as Sher Singh's makeshift explosive tore out the window of his squalid cell!

Spitting dust and grime, his shirt ripped, exposing half his manly chest and one muscular arm, he leapt through the hole to the ground.

As the guards frantically ran toward him, Mukkerjee rounded the corner in the souped-up Tatra!

"Get in, Sher!" cried his faithful Indian companion as the car briefly screeched to a halt!

With Sher Singh Rana to think was to act! He hopped the running board and dove into the passenger seat, bullets whizzing around his head!

"Hit it, Mukky!" he cried.
Rana escaped in February 2004 while being transported to court from New Delhi’s Tihar Jail by a police escort — who turned out be fellow bandits in disguise. The break out left many red faces among the authorities in Tihar Jail, regarded as one of India’s most secure prisons.
"Men! This is a black eye for the Tihar Jail! Sher Rana's going to be our top priority! Drop everything else, and bring him back!"
"Right, chief!"
"But make sure he's alive. I've got — plans for him!"
There was more embarrassment in store for Delhi police when Rana was located and interviewed by Hindi news channel Aaj Tak in February this year.
"And Sher — may I call you Sher? If you could be any kind of a tree that you wanted to be, what kind of tree would that be?"
"Well, Barbara..."
Rana had been arrested shortly after Devi, then a member of parliament, was shot dead by three masked men as she got out of a car at the gate of her New Delhi residence in July 2001. Police said Rana confessed to murdering Devi to avenge the deaths of 22 upper-caste Hindus she killed on ValentineÂ’s Day in 1981.
"Revenge! I will have Dire Revenge™ on the low-caste wench!"
Devi said the ValentineÂ’s Day massacre in the north Indian village of Behmai was in retaliation for her gang rape by upper-caste Hindus.
"Revenge! I will have Dire Revenge™ on the upper-caste bastards!"
The illiterate villager’s story — immortalised in an autobiography which she promoted in Europe and in the 1994 film “Bandit Queen” – won her a larger-than-life image as a brave woman who fought upper-caste tyranny.
I didn't see that movie, but I'll betcha I could tell you the plot...
Posted by:Fred

#1  Phoolan Devi was part of India's bandit folklore.

A member of the lower castes, she rose to notoriety in 1981 when she had 22 upper caste men massacred on Valentine's Day to avenge her gang rape.

She surrendered to the authorities in 1983 and served a prison sentence until February 1994.

Two years later she became a member of the Indian lower house of parliament. She lost her seat in 1998, but made a comeback the following year.

She was shot dead at the age of 38 in front of her official residence in Delhi in July 2001.


Posted by: john   2006-04-26 15:19  

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