SLAIN DACOIT Nirbhay Singh Gujjar’s ‘prized possession’ — his AK 47 — which had been a source of much bloodshed in the badlands of Yamuna ravines was recovered by the police on Monday. The only Mallah chieftain Mangali Kewat accompanied the cops to the spot where the lethal weapon was buried.
The gun, missing ever since Nirbhay had fallen to police bullets last year, was buried at a ‘Addi’ (a safe house of dacoits) near Maheshpur, Amrahat in Kanpur Dehat. Wrapped in a polythene sheet, the gun was buried with two magazines and 60 live cartridges. This is for the first time that the Kanpur police have recovered an AK-47 bettering their earlier best record of confiscating an LMG at Motijheel some 10 years ago.
This AK-47, the only one available in the ravines, generated a lot of interest among the dacoit gangs. Dreaded Jagjiwan Parihar had even announced a reward of Rs 10 lakh for anyone who brought him the gun. His rival Salim Gujjar was equally obsessed with the gun.
He regularly pressurised Nirbhay confidants to know the exact location of the gun. But it was an underdog like Mangali Kewat, arrested on Sunday here, who inherited the gun by default. When Nirbhay was going weak and Mangali had walked out of the gang with mullahs, a gang member Revadi stole the gun, cartridges and Rs 50,000 in cash. Nirbhay was heavily drunk at the time in one of his safe houses in Auraiya. A few days later Revadi joined the Mangali gang but never parted with the weapon. “Mangali knew about the theft so he started torturing Revadi. He could not withstand for long and divulged the location where he had buried it,” said a police official involved in the operation.
{{/usCountry}}He regularly pressurised Nirbhay confidants to know the exact location of the gun. But it was an underdog like Mangali Kewat, arrested on Sunday here, who inherited the gun by default. When Nirbhay was going weak and Mangali had walked out of the gang with mullahs, a gang member Revadi stole the gun, cartridges and Rs 50,000 in cash. Nirbhay was heavily drunk at the time in one of his safe houses in Auraiya. A few days later Revadi joined the Mangali gang but never parted with the weapon. “Mangali knew about the theft so he started torturing Revadi. He could not withstand for long and divulged the location where he had buried it,” said a police official involved in the operation.
{{/usCountry}}Salim and Jagjiwan were also desperate for the gun. Salim needed it to match Jagjiwan in terms of firepower. In fact he had lost his LMG and other weapons in the encounters with Jagjiwan and the police alike. Jagjiwan did his best to prevent Salim from getting the weapon to maintain his supremacy. Of late, the hunt resulted in a bloody war between the two gangs.
“Now that the gun has been recovered we are a relieved lot. Had the gun reached the dacoit leaders it would have created real problems for us,” said DIG (range) Daljeet Chowdhary.
Meanwhile, Kewat was produced in the court of CJM Randhir Singh. He was sent in judicial custody in Kanpur jail.