Police kill Champaran terror

BETTIAH: A special task force (STF) team, combining with Bagaha police, shot dead gangster Lallu Yadav and his sharpshooter Mukha Been in an encounter near Premahi Ghat under Bhitaha police station in Bagaha police district on Friday.
Champaran Range DIG C R Kaswan said, "Police waited overnight in ambush position. The information was correct and police gunned down the ganglord and his gunman in encounter." At least four other dacoits were injured, he added.This encounter has been the most significant achievement of "Operation Nishachar" launched recently by DGP R R Prasad. It is also another feather in the cap of Bagaha SP Ratan Sanjay who, it may be recalled, rescued several government engineers within hours of their abduction in the Valmikinagar jungles last month.
The gun battle in the Champaran-Uttar Pradesh diara has brought the curtain down on the Lallu Yadav''s reign in these parts. Ganglord Lallu Yadav held the sprawling diara as his personal fiefdom for more than one decade. Sources attributed over 100 cases of murders and kidnappings to the slain Lallu Yadav.
In December 1999, Lallu killed two villagers who dared to harvest elephant grass, a natural hideout in the diara. The villagers of Chandraha-Rupawalia retaliated by ransacking his house under construction in Bathwaria village. This provoked Lallu''s retribution. He gunned down nine Yadavas and burnt their houses.
RJD chief flew to the carnage site. So did the media, in droves. The resultant police action proved, as usual, an eyewash. What, however, failed to escape the eye was the incomplete mansion of the ganglord in the scary diara, the wireless tower of a MARR PCO adorning its campus — evidence of gangster Lallu''s links in political echelons?
The police failed to get Lallu. Instead, Lallu got back at the system, clawing constitutional places for his kin, probably in preparation to grab a political role himself.
Lallu''s son, Surendra, became mukhiya of Manpur village. Surendra was in jail. Yet, there was no contest. The gangster''s father could not avoid a contest in Bathwaria. Still he polled most to become mukhiya. Lallu reserved his best for his wife, Gulabi, in last year''s panchayat polls. She was elected to the Zila Parishad.
The cops waiting in ambush waylaid Lallu''s gang near Premahi Ghat early Friday morning. A gunbattle ensued in the diara. The dacoits tried to retreat under incessant STF gunfire. Many escaped. Four with serious injuries. The police bagged two. As gunfire ceased, cops rushed to retrieve two bodies. The identification proved to be a jackpot. Lying in the diara and smelling of gun powder were the bodies of Lallu Yadav and his hit man Mukha Been.