2003 Chitrakoot massacre: Nine awarded death, two life term

Thokia, who carried a reward of Rs 5 lakh, was gunned down by UP Special Task Force on August 4, 2008 in Chitrakoot.

“Additional District and Sessions Judge P K Srivastava found the case rarest of rare and awarded capital punishment to nine persons and life imprisonment to two others on Friday. The court has directed that those awarded life term will have to stay in jail for minimum 20 years. Court also imposed monetary fine on convicts and directed half of the amount should be given to victims’ family members,” Prosecution officer, Vivek Chandra said.

He said Ram Milan Upadhyay, Heera Mani Pandit, Maheshwari, Kallu, Badri, Rama Nand, Bhura, Heera Lal and Subhash have been awarded capital punishment while Maddi and Kamlesh will serve life term. Court acquitted two others, Ashok and Budhvilas, for lack of evidence.

In all, 28 prosecution witnesses, including 11 public witnesses, were examined.

“We had prayed for capital punishment because they had locked a woman and two children in their house before setting it on fire. Two others who died belonged to a neighbouring village and were passing by when they became target of indiscriminate firing by the dacoits,” said the government counsel.

The victims included Ram Kishore, Barkha Kol and Kutubada Garg who were shot dead. One Prakash Patel’s wife Chunni Devi, their son Chhota (6) and niece Geeta (3) were burnt alive.

The FIR in the case was filed by Raju Prasad Patel, the brother-in-law of Chunni Devi.

Contacted, Prakash said they had left the village after the incident and shifted to Bangalore. “We worked there as daily wage labourers and returned to the village only after they got the news of Thokia’s death in the encounter in 2008.

Government counsel said, the massacre at Baghia village was a fallout of the arrest of some members of Thokia’s gang in connection with murder of Raju Patel’s eldest brother Ram Swaroop and latter’s son Durga Prasad in 2001.

According to prosecution, on July 17, 2003, a gang led by Thokia reached Baghia village around 7 am and opened indiscriminate firing at Raju’s house. They also torched several houses. Raju later lodged a police complaint naming 18 people, including Thokia, and 20 to 25 unidentified dacoits

During investigation, the police found involvement of total 26 persons and filed chargesheet against them. Some accused were arrested while others including Thokia remained absconding. Sixteen accused were put on trial. Three of them, Chunni, Beta Garg and Chandra Bhan, died during trial.