Named in many dacoities, nomadic tribe member held

LUCKNOW: After over six months’ of efforts, the UP Special Task Force (STF) on Wednesday arrested a notorious member of nomadic gang Kishan alias Kalia for his alleged involvement in back-to-back dacoities and killings in Lucknow, Barabanki and Farrukhabad.

STF officials said Kalia had over 14 criminal cases registered against him in Lucknow, Barabanki and Farrukhabad and carried a reward of ₹ 1 lakh for his arrest after his name surfaced in the sensational dacoities.

Senior superintendent of police (SSP) of STF Abhishek Singh said the STF team was keeping tab on Kalia’s movement since he and three others associates, Vinod, and Ramveer and Dayaram had escaped when a police team had raided a hideout in Lucknow’s Krishna Nagar on February 3 earlier this year.

He said four members of the gang, Rajesh alias Patela, Manoj alias Chottu, Ramesh and Mahendra were arrested in Krishna Nagar while three others Vinod, Ramveer and Dayaram were arrested in separate raids.

The SSP said Kalia, however, was continuously changing his location and his mobile numbers to dodge the police team tracking him. “Kalia was hiding at different locations in Rajasthan and Haryana since February but we recently got tip off about his movement in Uttar Pradesh and arrested him while he was travelling on service lane alongside Agra-Lucknow expressway,” he stated. He said some valuables and ornaments robbed in different dacoities and a country made firearm were recovered from his possession. To recall, the state capital was rocked by a series of dacoities starting from December last year. The first incident occurred in Chinhat on the intervening night of December 24-25, 2017. The dacoits again targeted Chinhat on January 18, this year. Later, they struck two villages in Kakori--Baniyakheda and Katauli on the intervening night of January 20-21. Here they shot dead Abhishek alias Komal, son of Katauli village head Hari Shankar Yadav, injured nine people, and looted cash and valuables worth ₹10 lakh from five houses. On January 23, dacoits again struck at several houses in Sarava village of Mahilabad. One person was killed in the incident.