Jagannath Mahto stands outside the Tenughat jail on Saturday. Picture by Pankaj Singh

Bokaro, Sept. 27: JMM MLA Jagannath Mahto cocked a snook at the police and surrendered today, two months after a Bokaro district judge ordered his arrest on the basis of a warrant pending against him since 2003.

In his last show of defiance before being sent to jail, Mahto proudly declared he was surrendering on his own will since no “police officer, including seniors, dared to come to my house with the warrant”.

Later, after spending about an hour-and-a-half in Tenughat jail, he was moved to Bermo sub-divisional hospital 112km away on health grounds.

With the police looking the other way, the Dumri MLA had been roaming free for all these years — often seen in the company of senior state politicians — saying he had no knowledge of the 2003 warrant issued against him in connection with a 1985 murder case.

But pressure mounted on him and the police after The Telegraph reported on September 10 that Bokaro district judge Mangal Murthy had on July 20 ordered Bokaro SP Priya Dubey to execute the permanent arrest warrant issued by the Tenughat fast-track court against the MLA on April 3, 2003.

While Dubey and her officers claimed necessary action would be taken, Mahto interacted freely with the media, even attending the just-concluded monsoon session of the Assembly.

Publicly, Mahto claimed he was consulting his lawyers, while privately he met senior politicians of the state, including chief minister Shibu Soren, to find a way out. But when Soren declared the “law would take its own course” and that the MLA was bound to surrender, Mahto realised time was running out.

Today, along with some two dozen supporters, Mahto made a big show as he surrendered before first class magistrate D.K. Mishra at Tenughat, 48km from Bokaro, around 2pm. His lawyer, S.N. Dey, immediately moved for bail on medical grounds, claiming he was “a heart patient for years”.

The magistrate, however, rejected the plea and sent him to jail and set the next date of hearing on September 30. He also ordered that Mahto receive medical treatment based on which a doctor, A.K. Sinha, examined him in the presence of Tenughat jail superintendent Ramesh Prasad.

The case dates back to August 11, 1985, when one Karam Mahto alleged in an FIR that he saw his nephew, Dilu Mahto, being murdered the day before. He blamed four persons, including Jagannath, for the killing.

Investigations led to a case being lodged under various Sections, including 341, 323 and 302/34, of the IPC. A permanent arrest warrant was issued on April 3, 2003.

Surprisingly, Dey claimed Jagannath had not surrendered today in connection with the 2003 Dilu Mahto murder case. Instead, he cited a 1993 case registered in the Chandrapura police station relating to an altercation the MLA allegedly had with a teacher of Bhandaridah school. He was booked under IPC Sections, 147, 323 and 341, all of which were bailable.

But according to sources at the Tenughat court, there were three other cases registered against Jagannath. And since he had not appeared in any of them, Jagannath would now be remanded in all five pending cases.

Earlier, talking to this correspondent at the circuit house before surrendering in court, Jagannath blamed the media for making “a mountain out of molehill” in a case for which he wasn’t guilty.

IG (north Chhotanagpur) Bibhuti Bhushan Pradhan welcomed the MLA’s surrender but condemned Bokaro district police for its inaction. “If the MLA’s statement that no policemen dared to meet him with the arrest warrant was true, then it is indeed a big failure on the part of the police,” said Pradhan.