From aspiring engineer to extortionist: Jharkhand’s Aman Sahu and the Lawrence Bishnoi connection

The ATS — which was taking the gangster from Chhattisgarh’s Raipur Central Jail to the NIA court in Ranchi before taking him to Hotwar Central Jail, also in Ranchi — claims its convoy was attacked by Sahu’s associates around 9 am that day. According to the authorities, Sahu’s gang fired and threw explosives at the convoy in a bid to secure his freedom.

With 130 first information reports (FIRs) registered against him in Jharkhand alone — one of which was registered after his death — how exactly did Sahu, who showed academic promise early on, become a gang leader at the age of 30?

Born in 1995 in Matwe village in Ranchi’s Burmu, Sahu’s father Niranjan still runs a small general store there. Sahu’s elder brother Ankit is a mechanical engineer employed by a private company in Rajasthan, where he lives with his family. His younger brother Akash is also an engineer but has been in Hotwar jail since August 2024 in connection with an alleged terror funding case.

Police records show Sahu got 78% in Class 10, which he completed from Ramgarh district’s Patratu in 2010. Sahu would pursue a diploma in information technology and computer science from an Industrial Training Institute (ITI) Mohali in Punjab, graduating with 62%. At the age of 17, Sahu returned to Patratu and started working as a mobile phone technician around 2012.

His father says, “He had a sharp memory and did well in exams even without studying for months. After finishing his diploma, he started his own mobile shop but lost his way due to bad company. Antisocial elements would come to his shop and not pay for mobile recharges, which would lead to conflicts.”

The ATS convoy which was taking the gangster from Chhattisgarh’s Raipur Central Jail to the NIA court in Ranchi was attacked by Aman Sahu’s associates.

The switch to crime

The year 2012 marked his transition from a career in tech to becoming a career criminal. Police records show that he came in contact with the banned Jharkhand Sangharsh Janmukti Morcha (JSJM), a splinter group, in 2012. In the same year, Sahu was named in an FIR for the first time — for allegedly firing at a local cement factory as part of an extortion bid.

Over the decade that followed, Sahu successfully cemented his image as one of the state’s most feared gangsters. Though he initially worked with Dhanbad-based gangster Suraj Singh, by 2013, Sahu took to the world of crime like a duck to water. When he was not making extortion calls to individuals involved in coal and real estate businesses in Jharkhand and its neighbouring states, Sahu was claiming “credit” for shooting at and killing those who refused to give in, the police say.

In 2015, gangster Suraj Singh introduced Sahu to Sujit Sinha, a gangster in Jharkhand. Months later, their paths crossed again — in jail. Around this time, Suraj Singh succumbed to dengue. His death saw Sahu and Sinha forge an alliance and target transporters and contractors of entities like the Central Coalfields Limited (CCL).

Detained by Hazaribagh police in connection with another alleged extortion and murder case in 2019, Sahu escaped from Barkagaon police station. Media reports claim that he reportedly bribed the station house officer (SHO) to escape.

“The SHO purportedly lodged Sahu in the police station’s guest room instead of a jail cell, telling his subordinates that Sahu was his ‘younger brother’. Later that night, Sahu reportedly escaped through the ventilator of the locked guest room,” state local media reports from 2019.

Following his escape, gangster Sinha purportedly introduced Sahu to “Mayank Singh”, who, the police say, would subsequently become the “voice” of his gang. However, no one had any idea about Mayank Singh’s identity.

Meanwhile, to throw the police off his trail, Sahu allegedly relied on hotspot devices having SIM cards obtained using fake identities to communicate with his associates. “He even carried a portable jammer to make it difficult for us to track him in real-time,” a police source says. His luck ran out in 2020 when a special team led by then Ranchi Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Surendra Jha managed to arrest Sahu.

Though Sahu has remained behind bars since 2020, Mayank Singh allegedly kept the gang afloat under Sahu and Sinha’s instructions from jail. Soon after Sahu’s arrest, Sinha was awarded life term in a double murder case by a Palamu court. This development saw Sahu start his own independent operations, the police said.

Meanwhile, Mayank Singh, Sahu’s man Friday, handled everything for the imprisoned gang leader — from recruiting youngsters through social media by posting “larger-than-life” pictures of Sahu with high-end weapons to targeting individuals across Jharkhand, Bihar, Chhattisgarh and West Bengal. The gang also used social media to “take credit” for extortions, shootings and murders. At times, they even reached out to local media through untraceable calls or emails, the police say.

On how Sahu managed to run his empire from behind bars, Ranchi SSP Chandan Kumar Sinha says, “He would recruit prisoners who were up for release to do the groundwork for the extortions he was planning. All extortion calls were allegedly made by Mayank Singh, who was abroad.”

In the last FIR registered against Aman Sahu — posthumously — at Chainpur police station, the deceased gangster and his associates have been accused of attacking the ATS team.

The reveal

Meanwhile, Jharkhand Police was running around in circles, trying to ascertain Mayank Singh’s real identity. That was the case — until last year. “Sunil Meena, a close associate of gangster Lawrence Bishnoi, was ‘Mayank Singh’. Though he worked with Sahu initially, Meena terrorised Jharkhand businesspersons through WhatsApp calls in Mayank Singh’s name since the alias had become synonymous with the Sahu gang. Meena even moved from Malaysia to Azerbaijan to evade arrest,” a police source says.

As soon as Meena’s identity was confirmed, Jharkhand ATS launched an offensive against him — from getting his passport cancelled to applying for a Red Corner Notice against him.

Ranchi SSP Chandan Kumar Sinha says, “Meena has been arrested in Baku and will soon be extradited to India. He is suspected to be the key intermediary between the Sahu and Lawrence gangs, which are suspected of providing logistical support to each other’s members.”

Over the years, Sahu has also been accused of bribing and threatening jail superintendents and orchestrating attacks on them and their families to pressure them into providing resources beyond protocol, the police say, adding that this led to him being transferred from one jail to another.

In May 2018, Sahu was awarded a six-year term under the Arms Act by a lower court in the Ramgarh district. He also received a three-year sentence in a similar case in Latehar.

Lately, sources say, Sahu had started nursing political aspirations. “He was planning to contest the 2024 Jharkhand Assembly elections from Barkagaon seat in Hazaribagh. The maximum number of cases against him have been registered in that district. His request was turned down by the court,” the police say.

In October 2024, nearly a month before the Jharkhand elections, Sahu was transferred to Raipur jail in connection with an ongoing investigation into his gang’s extortion activities there.

All this while, the police say, Sahu, who was unmarried, did not have a permanent address. “His family had built a modest house in Matwe village, but Sahu was always either on the run or in jail. At present, the house is occupied by his parents. Most of his hideouts were allegedly located in Bihar and Nepal. He had allegedly also invested in hotel business in Nepal,” a source says.

On March 11, Sahu was being brought back to Jharkhand from Raipur by the state ATS unit. Around 9.30 am, as soon as the convoy reached the jungles in Jharkhand’s Andhari Dhodh Vale near Chainpur, nearly half a dozen members of his gang allegedly attacked the vehicles.

The police say, “In the melee, Sahu snatched a rifle from an ATS personnel in the car. He exited the car and started firing at the police team, hitting an ATS havaldar in the thigh. The team returned fire. Sahu sustained multiple bullet injuries, leading to his death.”

Demanding a CBI inquiry, Sahu’s father told 22Scope, a local news portal, that his son was “murdered”. He told the portal, “My son had earlier filed a petition in a Chhattisgarh court stating that his life was in danger. He should have faced legal consequences and not been killed in an encounter. Has justice been served this way?”

Claiming that Sahu was trying to quit crime, the father says, “We kept our distance from him, but tried to guide him from time to time. We last spoke four months ago. He was trying to quit crime and return to the mainstream. He even wanted to run for elections in 2024, but was denied permission from the court. So he started preparing for the next elections. The system never gave him an opportunity to return to the right track.”

Meanwhile, in the last FIR registered against Sahu — posthumously — at Chainpur police station, the deceased gangster and his associates have been accused of attacking the ATS team.