Hoodlum’s arrest brings relief to terror-stricken Ranchiites

Accused in 32 cases of murder, loot, rioting, extortion and illegal possession of arms, Bangali, who lived in Calcutta but operated in Ranchi, was a terror here. He single-handedly committed crime after crime.

He selected his clients in style and passed on messages to them either on the phone or by a courier, asking for ransoms that ranged from a few thousand rupees to lakhs, depending upon the person’s status. Anyone who dared to question him or dilly-dallied in meeting his demand was invariably assaulted, tortured and killed.

Despite best efforts of the police, Bangali had managed to evade arrest for over a decade since he quit a central para-military force. He was charged by the police for the first time in a case of attempted murder of a trader here in 1995.

“He could remain free for so long because we had no clues about his identity … Nobody divulged information as to how he looked and where he lived,” said a police officer, requesting anonymity.

Acting on a tip-off, Ranchi SSP Amitabh Choudhary despatched a police team to Calcutta on the morning of June 23. The same night, the team led by Assistant Superintendent of Police Abdul Gani Mir, with help from West Bengal Police, raided Bangali’s PGS Road residence in the city and nabbed him there. He was brought to Ranchi the following day.

Following a lead given by Bangali, the police recovered sophisticated arms, including an AK-47 rifle and hundreds of cartridges, from a factory in Ranchi and arrested its three owners – Yogendra Ojha, Jeetendra Vohra and Anil Kumar. Bangali, Ojha, Vohra and Kumar were remanded to judicial custody yesterday.