Dadua: On I-Day, no award for STF team

To make matters worse, former Samajwadi Party leader Beni Prasad Verma, who hobnobbed with the Congress during the Assembly elections, is accusing the STF of killing Dadua by deceit and wants to honour the dacoit who has 156 recorded murders against his name. Apna Dal leader Sona Ram Patel, alliance partner of the BJP in the last Assembly elections, wants to hold a prayer meeting for Dadua in his native Deokali. The two Kurmi leaders, who actually want to inherit Dadua’s Kurmi legacy, want action to be taken against the 22-member STF team that they claim killed the brigand through treachery.

Although the lack of appreciation on part of the bureaucratic establishment is weighing heavily on the STF’s mind, its rejuvenated teams are tracking Dadua’s right hand man Radhey and Ambika Thokia’s gangs. Latest reports indicate that the Radhey gang is stationed in the Panna-Satna jungles of Madhya Pradesh while the Thokia gang, that killed six STF personnel in an ambush on July 22, has been spotted near Sheetalpur. Among others on the STF’s most wanted list are Dadua’s Kurmi lieutenants Goter, Kalua, Anna, Ram Sagar, Bhunda and Raju.

While the Kurmi politicians may have messed the Dadua encounter and sowed seeds of suspicion in the minds of the Uttar Pradesh Government about STF, the fact is that the brigand was killed after the STF managed to infiltrate his gang and used electronic surveillance devices to monitor the movement of the gang for nearly two months. But the UP Home Department and top police officials want to play safe. At first they verbally communicated that only five out of a team of 22 led by SSP Amitabh Yash would be given out-of-turn promotions and a reward of Rs 1 lakh each on Independence Day. Now the proposal is to promote all 22 and reward them but only after the magisterial inquiry is complete. Individual proposals are still to be sent to the state Home Department and brakes have been put on the entire exercise.

This is in sharp contrast to the award of over Rs 21 crore, out-of-turn promotions to 752 police personnel and choicest plots given by then Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalitha to STF headed by Vijay Kumar that gunned down sandalwood smuggler Veerappan in 2004.