In the mother of all encounters in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, a 500-strong police force managed to shoot down dacoit Ganshyam Nishad in Chitrakoot district a couple of hours back after 52 hours of gun battle. It was a joint operation by the Uttar Pradesh (State) Police, Special Task Force and Provincial Armed Constabulary of Uttar Pradesh.

Ganshyam managed to kill four police officers including a company commander of the Provincial Armed Constabulary after being isolated from over a dozen members of his gang with whom he was moving at the time of the encounter. Inspector General of Police V K Gupta, Deputy Inspector General S K Singh and Special Task Force in charge of Allahabad Navendu Singh were among the five police officials who were injured in the encounter. Thereafter, Additional Director General of Police (Law & Order) Brij Lal took over the reins of the operation.

The police lobbed a grenade at Ganshyam’s hideout to smoke out the dacoit, who single-handedly engaged the 500-strong police force and kept it on its toes, and followed it up with intermittent gunfire. Alarmed by the sudden spurt in police action, Ganshyam climbed up the stairs and jumped off the roof of a house where he was holed up and tried to flee to the nearby jungle using a drain for cover before he was given a hot chase for and shot down by the police.

Ganshyam goes by the alias “Naam” and carried a reward of Rs.50,000 on his head from the state government. Though he was nowhere near dacoits “Gujjar” and “Daduwa” who were liquidated by the Uttar Pradesh Police in recent years, the reward in no way indicated how dangerous and dreaded Ganshyam was. If he had escaped during the encounter, he would have been a greater terror in the area than Gujjar and Daduwa.

Over 12 cases of dacoity, murder and extortion are registered against Ganshyam and his gang in Chitrakoot which is part of the Bundelkhand region bordering Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh which has been decoit-infested for decades and produced some of the most dreaded dacoits of India. His gang has killed two policemen in the past.

The police recovered a .315 bore gun and hand grenades from Ganshyam. The Jamauli village in Chitrakoot where he was hunted down is inhabited by Kewats, the community to which Ganshyam belongs. Over 12 cases of dacoity, murder, kidnapping and extortion are registered against him.

At the end of the 52-hour live encounter covered by Sahara Samay Television Channel, the ADG Brij Lal’s eyes welled up as he claimed that the operation was a great success for the Uttar Pradesh Police though they had to pay a heavy price for it.

Brij Lal said the turning point in the operation came when the police identified the house in which Ganshyam was holed up. He moved from one thatched house to another as the police kept setting them on fire and finally holed up in concrete house made of bricks and mortar.

Hours later Director General of Uttar Pradesh Police, Vikram Singh, held a press conference in Lucknow to hand out details of the operation.