Bihar police on Monday swooped down on and arrested Akhilesh Singh, the man who had masterminded the abduction of Exide chairman Satyabrata Ganguly way back in April 1999.

Besides being involved in criminal conspiracy in several cases across the city, Singh had played a key role in the abduction of Sajjan Jalan, a city-based trader, a few years ago, when he had gone for a morning walk in the Victoria Memorial Hall grounds.

Wanted in connection with the killing of at least 100 men across Bihar in the past six years since he joined crime, Singh was netted in his ancestral village Koch early on Monday. After waiting for weeks, a 25-man-strong police contingent from the districts of Nalanda and Nawada turned up at his residence morning, after being tipped off that the gang leader had returned home on Sunday night.

Three groups of men, each led by a senior officer, surrounded Singh?s sprawling house and waited for hours.

At the crack of dawn, when two officers barged in, Singh was sleeping. The moment he realised that policemen had arrived, he tried to run out of the room.

Police claimed Akhilesh jumped into a well situated in the north-east corner of his house to escape the cops.

?For over a year, Akhilesh had evaded arrest and committed one criminal act after another along with his gang in a very organised manner. While his area of operation was mostly confined to Nawada and Nalanda, occasionally he would move out to other districts with his gang,? said a senior police officer of the joint operation team.

Superintendent of Nawada police G.P.N. Singh was not available for comment.

Akhilesh was produced in court and remanded in judicial custody for 14 days.

Arrested on several occasions in the past, Singh had managed to escape twice from jail. He had formed his gang over the years, using his persuasive powers and leadership skills. According to police records, rivalry between the gangs of Akhilesh Singh and Ashok Mahato had turned Nalanda and Nawada into trouble-prone districts in the past few years.

City police had first stumbled upon Akhilesh?s name while probing the abduction of Satyabrata Ganguly.