Cops take on gang, shifted

While the UP Opposition has been going hammer and tongs, demanding ouster of several BSP MLAs from the Assembly for their alleged links with...

While the UP Opposition has been going hammer and tongs, demanding ouster of several BSP MLAs from the Assembly for their alleged links with outlaw Shiv Kumar Patel alias Dadua, Chief Minister Mayawati has gone ahead and shifted out several constables who had taken on the gang.

Some half a dozen constables, who were involved in a series of encounters, were recently shifted out.

Cong sacks Akhilesh Singh for six years

NEW DELHI: UP MLA and AICC member Akhilesh Singh was on Wednesday expelled from the primary membership of Congress for six years for his alleged involvement in a murder case.

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AICC treasurer and UP incharge Moti Lal Vora announced the expulsion and asked the state Congress committee president Arun Kumar Munna to implement the order immediately.

Singh had been declared an absconder by the UP Assembly and arrested on Monday when he sneaked into the House. (PTI)

Mayawati had even transferred out several police officers right from the DIG to the circle officer a few days after she assumed command in the state. This was apparently done at the behest of party MLAs from Bundelkhand region.

On Tuesday, Leader of Opposition Azam Khan demanded in the Assembly that these MLAs and even the Parliamentary Affairs minister be expelled for ‘‘trying to save a notorious bandit’’.

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He even waved a letter from the SP, Banda, which said that police had found railway coupons issued in the name of a BSP MLA from the pocket of a close Dadua associate, killed in an encounter recently, to back his claim.

The House was adjourned amid much ruckus after the government failed to address Opposition members’ concerns.

Incidentally, Dadua’s brother was the BSP nominee from Karchana Assembly segment in Allahabad in the previous Assembly polls but lost.

Dadua Kurmi, Budelkhand’s most dreaded outlaw, has eluded UP and MP police for over 20 years and carries a price of Rs 5 lakh on his head but is lionised by tribals exploited by the upper caste Dadus of Patha region of Allahabad and Chitrakoot districts.

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Officials concede that Dadua enjoys a strong following among tribals and low-caste inhabitants of the region.

A senior Indian Forest Service officer, Ram Lakhan Singh, projects him as a green warrior. ‘‘He has almost stopped poaching in Ranipur Wildlife Sanctuary in Chitrakoot,’’ Singh said.

Dadua, who hails from a family of marginal farmers of Fatehpur district, worked as an enforcer for Hira Pande, a Dadu landholder of Karvi area, when he took to the gun after a violent altercation with his employer in 1979.

His showed his political knack a decade ago when he campaigned for fellow caste leader Ram Sajeevan, a communist, but later shifted allegiance to Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party.

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After the Samajwadi Party’s alliance with Kanshi Ram’s Bahujan Samaj Party broke down in 1995, Dadua backed the BSP. In the recent Assembly polls, he openly canvassed for BSP candidates R.K. Singh Patel and Daddu Prasad for the Karvi and Mau-Mainkpur seats.