LUCKNOW: Dreaded dacoit, Babuli Kol, with his reign of terror across the Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh and areas of Madhya Pradesh, was killed on Sunday, confirmed UP DGP OP Singh here on Monday. The DGP also confirmed that the dacoit and his close aide Lovlesh were killed in Madhya Pradesh. Kol had been carrying a cash reward of Rs 5.5 lakh on his head while Lovesh had the reward of Rs 1.5 lakh.
While the Madhya Pradesh police claimed to have eliminated the dread brigand in an encounter, UP police sources said that he was killed in a gang war. As per the sources, Lali Kol, a dacoit who had allegedly joined Babuli just six months back, eliminated him.
Babuli had been in news for abducting two farmers one each from UP and MP recently.
The police sources also claimed that Babuli and Lovlesh were killed when a rift among the gang members broke out over distribution of ransom amount they had received consequent to the abduction of farmer Awdhesh Dwivedi from Harsedh under Dhakundi police station area in Satna, MP. “The gang war took place on Sunday under Dharkundi police station area in MP’s Satna district bordering Chitrakoot district of UP,” said a senior official of UP police.
On getting the information of the killing, the team of MP police headed by an I-G level officer and also UP police team headed by Chitrakoot SP Manoj Jha launched an intense search operation in the forest areas.
After a combing operation of around 10 hours, the bodies of Babuli and Lovlesh were recovered from the Veerpur forest area by the MP police. The killers had dragged the bodies deep into the forest area, said a senior police official.
Notably, both the UP and MP police had been after the dacoit for over a decade and a half. In UP, Babuli used to operate through his hideouts in dense forest of Chitrakoot in Bundelkhand region while in Madhya Pradesh, he had his fiefdom across Patha region.
In fact, around 125 cases pertaining to loot murder, abduction, kidnapping, rioting were registered against Babuli and Lovlesh who was Babuli’s brother-in-law, under various police stations across Chitrakoot, Banda, Prayagraj in UP along with Satna and Reeva districts in MP.
The gang was registered as IS-262 in police records. It had 13 members in all. As per the police sources, Babuli had modern weaponry including AK-47. The UP police had several encounters with the brigand but to no avail. Even a sub-inspector had lost his life during one such encounter with the dacoit but success remained elusive.
Son of a labourer, Babuli, 38, belonged to village Kolan Tikaria of Chitrakoot in UP. After completing class 8th in Chitrakoot, he went to Banda for further education. After completing his education till intermediate, he came back and started farming in his village.
In 2007, Chitrakoot police rounded him up on charges of aiding the then gang of dread dacoits led by Thokia. Babuli was jailed for 6 months. During jail term, he came across Lale Patel of Thokia gang and after coming out of jail, Babuli helped Lale escape police custody during a hearing in court.