Kingpin of criminal gang arrested

RANCHI: The self-styled chief of dreaded inter-state gang Jharkhand Badshah was on Sunday arrested along with one of his associates in the state capital. The duo are involved in over a dozen incidents of criminal activities in Rourkela and Sundergarh districts of Orissa.
The arrested persons have been identified as Yashwant Sahu alias Balram Sahu and Rajesh Oraon.They were arrested from a place in Namkum.
A team of Orissa police headed by Rourkela SP has arrived in the city to interrogate Sahu and Oraon who are wanted in over a dozen cases of extortion, loot, kidnapping and murder.
Sahu, a native of Jharkhand, was the kingpin of the gang which is quite active in the Sundergarh and Rourkela districts of Orissa. The gang was gradually spreading its influence in the sub-urban and rural areas of the state.
A joint team of the Ranchi and Orissa police is currently interrogating Sahu and Oraon at an undisclosed location. The Orissa police are likely to seek transit bail for them from the Jharkhand High Court so that they could be taken to Orissa for further interrogation.
Ranchi SSP Praveen Kumar said that a joint team of the Ranchi and Orissa police are interrogating the duo.
In another incident, the Ranchi police on Sunday arrested a top Maoist, who was involved in two police encounters at Lali village under Namkum and Bundu police stations, from Rahe village.
The Maoist, Bhashkar Munda, is being interrogated by the police at Namkum. He has confessed to his involvement in the two police encounters in which no casualties were reported.
Officer in-charge of Namkum police station Venkatesh Kumar said Munda's interrogation is in progress. "He had joined hands with the CPI(Maoist) two years ago. He was trying to earn notoriety in the area," Kumar said.