Gangster eludes police

PURNIA: The much publicised police raids on the houses of vice-chairman of Purnia Zila Parishad Niraj Singh alias Chhota Singh as well as vice-chairman Purnia Municipality Asha Singh on Friday turned out to be a flop show, according to sources.A high-level team headed by the superintendent of police (SP) K C Sunderbabu alongwith a police contingent rushed to the house of vice-chairman, Zila Parishad on being tipped off that a ganglord had moved towards the house take shelter there.However, the police team drew a blank as the ganglord had already slipped away. Another raid in the same sequence in the house of Asha Singh, vice-chairman of the municipality also came a cropper.The top functionaries of the public bodies, according to a grapevine, had allegedly been tipped about the raids by a policeman which ultimately sabotaged the raids.The Purnia police, according to informed sources, had for long been keeping a tab on the two main functionaries of Zila Parishad and municipality who are believed to have been in close contact with the gangsters. According to sources, they have also been harbouring notorious criminal and outlaws. They are also known to have access to senior RJD leaders and ministers from this region because of which police have generally been soft-pedalling cases against them and refrained from taking action against them.Sources pointed out that Niraj Singh alias Chhotu Singh had also given shelter to some gangsters who had allegedly demanded a huge ransom from an executive engineer who, for the sake of his life, had gone away to Patna after lodging an FIR with Purnia police.