Gaya, July 19: He is known as Bade Sarkar to his cadres, carries a reward of Rs 5 lakh on his head for more than five years now and has eluded security forces in Bihar and Jharkhand for over 15 years. And it was the hunt for him that led to the death of 10 CoBRA personnel in the encounter with Maoists in the Sondaha forest area of Aurangabad district on Monday.

A member of CPI-Maoist's "special area committee" and overall in-charge of Bihar and Jharkhand, Vijay Yadav alias Sandeep alias Bhupesh is said to be an expert in jungle warfare. He is named as an accused in at least 80 cases in police stations of Bihar and Jharkhand, and has led many attacks that have claimed the lives of security personnel or public representatives.

He is the main accused in the murder of former Gaya MP Rajesh Kumar in 2005 at Imamganj. Rajesh was at the time contesting the Assembly elections from Imamganj on a Lok Jan Shakti Party ticket.

Other attacks that the security forces believe are Sandeep's handiwork include one in 2012 in which two CoBRA jawans were killed in Maigra under the Dumaria police station area in Gaya, a landmine blast that killed 13 police personnel in Gaya's Raushanganj police station area in 2013 and two more attacks that year in Chhakarbandha under Dumaria police station area that killed 12 Central Reserve Police Force personnel including assistant commandant Birendra Singh.

Sandeep, originally from Baburamdih village under Bankebazaar police station in Gaya district, has survived many security operations launched to nab him. And it was another hunt for him - which began on Sunday comprising CoBRA, CRPF and Aurangabad district police personnel - that culminated in tragedy for the CoBRA force searching for him in the Sondaha forest area following intelligence inputs.

A CoBRA jawan, who was not part of the combing operation, rued: "If we would have succeeded to arrest or kill Sandeep the martyrdom of our colleagues would not have been in vain."