Captives cook for Nirbhay Singh gang

Etawah (Uttar Pradesh), Sept. 1: Nirbhay Singh Gujjar poured half-a-peg of whisky for nine-year-old Santosh Yadav and looked on amusedly at the boy’s confusion — in a television grab on a local channel that went on air across Uttar Pradesh some weeks ago.

Around the same time, local newspapers splashed photographs of a 10-year-old boy fidgeting with a revolver, obviously not a toy, at the dreaded dacoit’s base camp in the Chambal ravines.

The children, abducted for ransom, are not the only ones in Nirbhay’s custody who suffer his gang’s abuse.

This correspondent saw five men cooking for the gang under the watchful eyes of a dacoit during a brief encounter with Veerappan of the north yesterday. “If the food is bad, the abducted persons (who cook) are kicked around mercilessly,” an insider said.

The women members are not alone in facing the gang’s sexual perversions, the insider added. Worse still, the abducted are often used as shields against police firing when the gang is on the run or the children are left to die of snakebites or malaria.

Eight-year-old Subham Mishra, abducted six months ago from a cultural show at Etawah, is believed to have died of snakebite after being abandoned in a jungle. His parents had failed to pay the Rs 12-lakh ransom.

Numb with anxiety, Subham’s father, Avdhesh Mishra, is still hopeful even though a gang member sent him a message saying the boy is dead. He has been chasing police and reporters in Etawah to find out about his son after the gang recently snapped communication with him. “Will you please get to the truth behind this? Is my son alive or dead? There is no way I can get confirmation,” Avdhesh begged this correspondent.

The son of Rupesh Dixit, a bank employee in the state’s Jalone district, was lucky. “My 12-year-old son spent four months with the gang and had to be treated for deep psychological disorder for the abuse he suffered. Thank God, he is recovering slowly.” But Rupesh fears his son’s emotional scars may never really go away.

Nirbhay is not the only ganglord abusing his captives — 13 at last count, including three children; two others were killed and sent to Jalone police on Friday in retaliation to a crackdown on the gang.

Boasting as many “slaves” are three other gangs active in the ravines of Jalone, Etawah and Arraiya districts in Uttar Pradesh. Arvind Gujjar has nine, of which five are children. Selim Gujjar has five girls, three of whom have been made his “wives”.

Sajjan Gujjar, a distant relative of Nirbhay’s, has two children and three women among his captives, two of whom have been married to gang members.

“The abducted are asked to do all kinds of odd jobs — fetch water from the river for cooking and massage the gang members,” says Shyam Jatav, the adopted son of Nirbhay. In Etawah jail after surrendering early last month, Shyam should know because he, too, was kidnapped when he was 13 and forced to slave for three years. Later, Nirbhay developed a liking for the boy and decided to adopt him.

“Often, boys are given real weapons to try targets and as they cry hearing the gun shots, the gang members enjoy the spectacle of the fear-struck kids,” Shyam says.

His wife, Sarala Jatav, too, was kidnapped and reared by Nirbhay. Shyam alleges his foster father has an illicit relationship with her.

Subdivisional police officer A.K. Awasthi has more horror tales of the gangs’ use of its captives. “They fan caste tensions, abduct a couple of persons from the village where the police conduct raids and incite villagers against the raiding policemen,” he said.

Awasthi recalls how women and children are made to trail after an escaping gang so that police are unable to fire.

“During one encounter, one of the woman members of the Selim gang was killed,” he said.