After 31 yrs, court fast tracks Behmai massacre

In what could be seen as an apt example of justice being delayed indefinitely, the anti-dacoity court in Kanpur has recorded the first statement in the Behmai massacre as many as 31 years after the gruesome killings.

The special judge, anti-dacoity, Mehmood Ahmed Khan recorded the statement of 62-year-old Rajaram Singh on Monday. The court also ordered day to day hearing of the matter from now on. The special court has recently finalised charges against four of the accused dacoits.

Bandit queen Phoolan Devi and her gang had lined up and shot down as many as 22 upper caste Thakurs in Behmai village of Kanpur (Rural) on February 14, 1981.

In his statement before the special anti-dacoity court on Monday, Rajaram affirmed that he was indeed a witness of the Behmai massacre. In his statement running into 10 pages, he said one of the accused named in the case was actually not part of the gang which carried out the massacre. He also said two dacoits by the name of Maan Singh had been listed as accused where as they were one and the same person, and that this was only a ruse to mislead the court.

Rajaram also told the court that the dacoits hiding in the area used to threaten the local villagers to give them food and rations. He said complaints in this regard were made to the local police station and even to the DIG but the police did not take any action because of the terror of the dacoit gang in the area.

Initially, the police had named only four dacoits – Phoolan Devi, Baba Mustaqeem, Ram Autar and Lalloo – as accused. As the investigation progressed, later about three dozen other dacoits were also named as accused.

Phoolan had surrendered before the Madhya Pradesh police in 1983, and later was twice elected as MP on Samajwadi Party ticket. She was still an MP when she was shot dead in New Delhi on July 25, 2001.

Shekhar Kapur made a biopic, Bandit Queen in 1994 on Phoolan Devi’s life up to the 1983 surrender, based on Mala Sen’s 1993 book India’s Bandit Queen: The True Story of Phoolan Devi.