The body of Nirbhay Gujjar in Etawah on Monday. (PTI)

Aurraiya (Uttar Pradesh), Nov. 8: Scattered in the undergrowth was a revolver, it once belonged to a policeman, some cartridges, a bottle of massage oil, medicines and a mobile phone.

A little distance ahead lay a bag of food.

In his last, futile scramble to safety, Nirbhay Gujjar had tried to lighten his burden. But his time had come.

As he crawled deeper into the jungle, stopped and then crawled again, away from the police guns, his lifeblood also ebbed away. A little later, the man who had terrorised the ravines for 20 years, was dead.

The bandit, the last of the dreaded dacoits who ruled this rugged terrain, was planning to escape to neighbouring Madhya Pradesh when police guns surprised him.

Around 8.30 last night, a special task force team, led by superintendent of police Akhil Kumar, engaged Nirbhay in a gun battle. An hour later, the team found his body, with multiple bullet injuries, near a corner of the Ajitmal-Niyamatpur jungle, about 32 km from the Agra-Kanpur highway.

Nirbhay, wanted in connection with over 90 cases, lay in a pool of blood. His bearded face and flowing hair looked freshly coloured. The rudraksh he always wore around his neck as a safeguard against misfortune protruded from beneath the pullover and the pink shirt the bandit had on when he was gunned down.

“He did not believe even his shadow but had a twisted faith in god despite all his ungodly activities,” said Sudhir Gujjar, a resident of Nirbhay’s village, Malwa.

Around 9 this morning, when the police van carrying Nirbhay’s body left the jungle in a cloud of dust, the question on everybody’s mind was if this valley of terror would finally be free of its curse.

Police officer Kumar says the “accursed ravines” never remain empty of bandits.

“There are still two small gangs left ? that of Selim and Jagjivan Parihar,” he said. “We wonder if the leftover members of Nirbhay’s gang would join them. A mopping-up operation is needed and the police have been at it since last night.”

It is easy to be sceptical, though Nirbhay’s death has to a great extent eased the pressure on the police. For far too long, the ravines have remained under the shadow of dacoit guns.

In the fifties, it was Daku Mansingh before Putli Bai struck terror in the sixties. Malkhan Singh and Mohar Singh came in the late seventies. Then it was Phoolan’s turn in the eighties.

Nirbhay ruled the terrain for the last 20 years but, unlike Phoolan, failed to make a transition to politics.

In a message to Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav early last year, he had said he would like to surrender. “I consider you my guru,” he wrote.

“If she (Phoolan) can stage a surrender drama with as big a leader as Arjun Singh, why cannot Mulayam Singh Yadav give me a chance?” he had once said.

Mulayam Singh’s embarrassed reply was: “He has the habit of name dropping. He will either be caught or be killed.”

Nirbhay was also the last link with the caste-based dacoits who sprung up in the mid-eighties. He began his career as a member of the Lalaram gang, which was responsible for the Thakur-Mallar schism in the ravines.

Residents say Nirbhay meddled in local politics. “If he liked to back a candidate, he would terrorise others. He had chopped off my nose because I had dared to contest against a candidate of his choice,” said Satyanarayan Rathore.

If people feared Nirbhay when he was alive, they stayed away from him even after his death. Today, the police waited till evening but no one came to accept his body.

His sisters also disowned him, though one of them, Rama Devi, broke down.

“He was dead since he left home and went underground. He killed many and made many dacoits,” she sobbed. “But he also used to help people.”