How dacoits thrive in B’khand

LUCKNOW: The police failed to locate the dacoit Babuli Kol gang, which killed a sub-inspector and injured three constables on Thursday, even after combing the Bundelkhand forest areas for two days.

The fact that the dacoits have remained elusive has a lot to do with their familiarity with the terrain and their strong information network which alerts them about police movement, enabling them to slip into the forests.

The dacoits are notorious for meting out harsh punishment to police informants, the reason why not many villagers are willing to reveal the whereabouts of the outlaws.

The dacoits killed three informants on the UP- Madhya Pradesh border recently and burned their bodies.

While Chambal dacoits have been eliminated or surrendered over the years, the Bundelkhand brigands continue to flourish despite the killing of their chieftains like Shiv Kumar Patel alias Dadua, Ambika Patel alias Thokia and Swadesh Patel alias Balkhadia.

“A nexus among politicians, criminals, contractors, policemen and government employees gives oxygen to the dacoit gangs,” said Amarjeet Singh, a schoolteacher in Manikpur.

“When the police surrounded the Gopa Yadav gang in the Chitrakoot forests, a local politician pressured the police to give him safe passage. Later, he played an important role in the surrender of the dacoit,” he said.

The dacoits and their families have political aspirations. Slain dacoit Dadua’s son Vir Singh won the 2012 assembly election on the Samajwadi Party (SP) ticket. His uncle Balkumar Patel won the Mirzapur Lok Sabha seat in 2009. Thokia’s mother contested the 2007 assembly election on the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) ticket.

The support of these gangs is crucial for political parties. The dacoits openly announced their support to one political party or another during the 2014 Lok Sabha polls and 2017 assembly election.