Disappearance of arms baffles UPP

LUCKNOW: Disappearance of three members of UP’s most wanted brigand Babuli Kol’s gang along with semi-automatic rifles has baffled the UP police, which had been after Babli Kol, the brigand whom the Madhya Pradesh police claimed to have gunned down in an encounter.

Madhya Police on Monday claimed to have killed dacoit Babuli Kol, 40, and his gang member, Lavlesh Kol, 34, in an encounter at Satna, 486 kilometers north east of Bhopal, three days after he released a farmer abducted for ransom.

Sources in UP police said Babuli Kol and his close aide Luvlesh Kol were apparently killed by the missing members of his gang over a dispute in sharing the ransom money the gang received from the family of a farmer kidnapped from Madhya Pradesh’s Satna district around a week ago.

They said three missing members were Lalli Kol, Sanjay Kol and Chottu. One of them was reportedly an informer planted by the UP police to track movement of the gang.

Sources said Babuli and Luvlesh, who were relatives, usually carried semi-automatic rifles along with them but the same were missing in the arms recovered from the scene. The Madhya Pradesh police, they said, had shown the recovery of two 12 bore rifles from the spot.

Sharing further details, a senior police official said the UP police was very close to tracking down Babuli Kol and his gang through the informer planted in the gang but he betrayed at the last moment.

The official said there were also reports that the three missing members killed the two on

Saturday night and fled with semi-automatic rifles, ammunition as well as around ₹ 6lakh. He said one of the missing members even informed the Madhya Pradesh police after killing the two brigands.

The Madhya Pradesh police later recovered the bodies and claimed to have gunned them down in police encounter, he added.

Babuli Kol is listed among the most wanted criminals on the UP Police website and is wanted in multiple cases of loot, kidnapping and murder of over a dozen people, including police officers, according to the police.

He carried a bounty of ₹ 500,000 from the UP police while the MP police had announced the reward of ₹ 100,000 lakh on his head.

A senior UP police official, who remained posted in Chitrakoot for long period, said Kol’s gang has allegedly killed several people and police personnel on the suspicion of them keeping tabs on his men.

He said the UP police had had several encounters with Kol’s gang but Babuli managed to escape every time.