Behmai carnage: After 30 years court frames charges against 4

KANPUR: More than 30 years after the infamous Behmai massacre in which 20 people, including 17 Thakurs, were killed by Phoolan Devi and her gang of bandits, a court in Kanpur Dehat framed charges against four of the surviving accused.
Around six bandits and Phoolan Devi herself have died, while four others are absconding. The remaining four now await their fate with charges framed against them.
Phoolan and 14 outlaws had raided Behmai, where she was gang-raped over several days, for revenge in February 1981 and killed 20 people. Phoolan herself was shot dead in July 2001 outside her New Delhi bungalow on Ashoka Road, barely a kilometer away from Parliament, where she lived as a Samajwadi Party MP. Prime accused Sher Singh Rana, alias Pankaj, later surrendered and is facing trial. The dacoit-infested area court of Kanpur Dehat on Friday framed charges against Bheekha, Fosa, Vishwanath and Ram Singh. The court said the gang had raided Behmai village and committed a dacoity there that on February 14, 1981.
"During dacoity, you committed murders, thus you people had committed crime under Section 396 IPC and the court had taken cognizance," Judge MA Khan observed.
Phoolan never faced trial for the Behmai carnage as she had surrendered before the MP government in February 1983 with 10 other gang members. Then chief minister Arjun Singh had ordered her to be kept in Gwalior jail and not sent to UP. As a result summons, warrants and non-bailable warrants of Kanpur court were returned unserved from Gwalior jail.
In 1992, Phoolan moved the Supreme Court pleading that she was in jail for 11 years and since the cases against her could not be tried in UP, she should be discharged. In 1994, as UP CM, Mulayam Singh Yadav withdrew all criminal cases, including the Behmai carnage case, against her "in public interest", a decision challenged by the families of the victims in the apex court.
In 2001, after Phoolan became an MP, the Supreme Court directed that if Phoolan Devi wants relief from the cases against her, she would have to surrender before the Kanpur court.
However, she was shot before she could observe the SC directive. The cases fell of the court's radar after her death and have only now recrudesced.
Cases against Ramkesh, Baladeen, Ram Autar, Mata Prasad, Phoolan Devi, Brij Bihari, Shivpal and Baburam were closed as they are dead. Ram Ratan, Vishwanath alias Ashok alias Putani and Shyam Babu are absconding.
The court had issued permanent warrant and ordered attachment of their properties on previous dates. The police have told the court that Vishwanath alias Ashok and Ram Ratan were not living in their villages since last 20 and 15 years respectively and they had sold the property and left to unknown places.