• ‘Bandit Queen’ Phoolan Devi’s kidnapper arrested after 2 decades

    National
    ‘Bandit Queen’ Phoolan Devi’s kidnapper arrested after 2 decades
    The police found fake ID proofs made in the name of Brajmohan Das, a resident of Raghuraj Nagar in Chitrakoot in the Satna district.

    Digital Desk: Sixty-five-year-old Chheda Singh, who is believed to have been one of the dacoits who kidnapped Phoolan Devi, the ‘Bandit Queen’ in 1980, was arrested after a search of more than two decades.

    According to reports, Chheda Singh was arrested from his home in Bhasaun village in the Auraiya region of Uttar Pradesh. He had a 50,000 rupee bounty on his head and went to Uttar Pradesh for medical care.

    Meanwhile, it was reported that he spent the last twenty years residing at an Ashram close to Janki Kund in Madhya Pradesh's Chitrakoot while posing as a Baba and working there as a Sevadar.

    The police found fake ID proofs made in the name of Brajmohan Das, a resident of Raghuraj Nagar in Chitrakoot in the Satna district.

    When he was in his early twenties, he joined the Lalram Gang in the Chambal ravines. He was one of the Lalram Gang's most active members. Lalram and Sitaram Singh, the group's leaders, had got their gang members Phoolan Devi kidnapped in 1980 after they had killed the leader of a rival gang, Bikram Mallah.

    Chheda Singh was declared an absconder by a court in UP after being wanted for more than 20 crimes of murder, dacoity, kidnapping, and extortion.

    Notably, Phoolan Devi was shot dead at close range by three masked gunmen in front of her Ashoka Road home in New Delhi's VIP district when she returned home for lunch after attending a Lok Sabha session on July 25, 2001.

    She was a Samajwadi Party member from the Mirzapur constituency in Uttar Pradesh.