13 years after Phoolan Devi was shot dead in the heart of Delhi, her killer is convicted, bringing to a closure yet another case arising from caste animosity.
By Ramesh Menon
Thirteen years after Sher Singh Rana, 38, pumped five bullets into Phoolan Devi’s head and stomach on a balmy afternoon outside her official residence on Ashoka Road in Delhi on July 25, 2001, he has been found guilty of murder by a trial court. Hearing the verdict in a packed courtroom, Rana demanded to know why he was convicted, while the other 10 accused were let off. The judge told him that his conviction was on the basis of evidence and he was free to appeal in the high court.
Ostensibly, he had taken revenge for the killing of 22 high-caste Thakurs by Phoolan in Behmai in 1981. Phoolan, dressed in her fatigues, had led other dacoits there in search of the Thakur duo of Lala Ram and Sri Ram who had led her gangrape after she resisted their advances. She got the Thakurs lined up and shot them at point-blank range. This massacre by Phoolan, who belonged to the lower Mallah caste, sent waves of shock and outrage. There was also silent admiration of her revenge, as lower castes singed under oppression. Many saw her as a revolutionary out to avenge the atrocities against the lower castes. At that time, Phoolan would hardly have imagined how this caste angularity would define her life in the decades to come.
Fight for justice
Rewind to the past and you will see why a shy, uneducated Phoolan took to arms. It started in the hamlets of Sheikhpur Gurha in Jalaun on the banks of the Yamuna river. Phoolan was a little girl protesting against cousin Maiyyadeen who was eyeing their land. She found that the cops were not on her side. Taking up arms to fight for justice seemed the only recourse left to her. In 1979, she was among the dacoits in the dreaded Chambal ravines with a rifle slung over her shoulder. She had also deserted the husband she had acquired as a child. In the ravines, Vikram Mallah became her new lover. Legends swirled around their romance and their fight against the upper castes.
In mid-February 1983, she publicly surrendered to the government in a high-voltage ceremony, making it to the cover of print media all over the world. It was NK Singh, the superintendent of police in Bhind, who had protracted negotiations with her to give up arms. Dressed in a khaki shirt and trousers, Phoolan, who was less than five feet tall, marched to the ceremony with a .302 caliber rifle slung across her shoulders, while a dagger hung at her waist. A red bandana tried to hold her disheveled hair in place. She surrendered her rifle to Madhya Pradesh chief minister Arjun Singh, while hundreds of flashbulbs popped. She marched to jail proudly to spend 11 long years behind bars. She had set conditions for her surrender: her family had to be taken care of by the government and none of the dacoits who surrendered would be sentenced to death.
Catapulted as MP
And in a calculated move, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav decided to capitalize on the euphoria raised by the Mandal Commission empowering the lower castes. He withdrew all 55 charges against Phoolan, which included 22 of murder. She was released from jail and made the Samajwadi Party Lok Sabha candidate from Mirzapur in 1996. She won. And won again in 1999. She was the new face of empowerment of the lower castes. They forgave her for all that she had done.
And as she started living on upmarket Ashoka Road as a member of parliament, a far cry from the tumultuous days she had spent in the dry ravines, dodging police encounters, her influence grew.
Devious mind
According to the police, Rana was hatching a plot to kill her for a long time. He had checked into a guesthouse near Chittaranjan Park, close to where Phoolan lived in 2000. He supposedly did a recce, tracing her movements in an attempt to kill her, but failed. A year later, he charted a systematic plan by getting close to Uma Kashyap, a close associate of Phoolan, so that he could get access to her residence. A few days before the murder, in a carefully crafted move to ensure that Rana had an alibi, his father withdrew his surety in a case involving his liquor shop, leading to a court ordering Rana’s arrest. Rana sent his friend, Shravan, to impersonate him and go to jail.
On July 25, 2001, Rana and three of his aides, reached Phoolan’s house around 10.30 am when she was getting ready to go to parliament. Rana offered to drop her and she agreed. After doing so, he came back to her residence and waited for her. When she returned home for lunch, he shot her with his country weapon in the head. His accomplices, meanwhile, shot and injured her personal security officer and escaped to Hardiwar. Two days later, Rana confessed, saying he killed Phoolan to avenge the Behmai massacre and surrendered. Ironi-cally, he became a legend among the high castes in Uttar Pradesh, who have since campaigned for his release.
The police soon figured out that Rana was no ordinary criminal. On the morning of February 17, 2004, Rana, along with Sandeep Rana, an imposter, walked out of the jail posing as a handcuffed criminal and cop respectively being taken to court. Sandeep charged Rana Rs 6 lakh to work out the escape.
First, Sandeep entered jail posing as Rana’s advocate under the name Pradeep Thakur. Then, on the fateful day of the sensational jailbreak, Pradeep came into Tihar Jail dressed as a cop impersonating Arvind, a constable from the Delhi Armed Police, as Rana was to be taken to a Haridwar court. He did the necessary formalities like filling in a form, submitted a fake warrant, collected a diet allowance of `40, handcuffed Rana and led him to a waiting autorickshaw outside the jail. It dropped him at a bus terminal, from where Rana went to Ghaziabad and then, Ranchi. He managed to secure a passport in the name of an assistant commissioner of police from Delhi and flew to Bangla-desh. From there, he went to Dubai, Iran and Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, the special cell of the police kept looking for him and waited for him to come to Kolkata to renew his passport. When he did, they nabbed him. He was back in Tihar where he was closely guarded, as the police knew he would try to escape again.
What eventually nailed Rana was the testimony of Balinder Singh, Phoolan’s personal security officer, along with forensic reports of Rana’s fingerprints on the pistol used to murder Phoolan. The court also relied on the testimony of Rana’s friends to establish that the Maruti car used in the crime was registered in his name. Strong forensic and circumstantial evidence ensured Rana did not get away.
And so, the enduring legend of the Bandit Queen lives on.