The ‘mastermind’ behind India’s largest jailbreak

On a quiet Sunday night in November 2005, a journalist within the Indian state of Bihar acquired a panicked telephone name at residence.

“The Maoists have attacked the jail. Persons are being killed! “I am hiding in the bathroom,” one prisoner gasped into his cellular phone, his voice trembling. Gunfire echoed within the background.

He was calling from a jail in Jehanabad, an impoverished space that was then a stronghold of left-wing extremism.

This colonial-era red-brick jail is crumbling and filled with prisoners. It occupied an acre of land and contained 13 barracks and cells, and official studies described it as “darkish, dank and filthy”. It was initially designed to deal with round 230 individuals, however might home as much as 800 prisoners.

The Maoist insurgency started in a small village in Naxalbari, West Bengal, within the late Nineteen Sixties and later unfold to a lot of India, together with Bihar. For almost 60 years, guerrillas, often known as Naxalites, have fought the Indian authorities to ascertain a communist society, a motion that has claimed the lives of a minimum of 40,000 individuals.

Jehanabad jail is a tinderbox for Maoists and their class enemies – vigilantes from upper-caste Hindu non-public armies. All awaiting trial for shared atrocities. As in lots of Indian prisons, some inmates bribed guards to acquire cellphones.

“This place is filled with insurgents. Lots of people are simply strolling out,” the prisoner – certainly one of 659 inmates on the time – whispered to Mr Singh.

On the evening of November 13, 2005, 389 prisoners, together with many insurgents, escaped from Jehanabad Jail, making it the biggest jail break in India (and probably Asia). Not less than two individuals had been killed in a jail shootout and a police officer’s rifle was stolen through the chaos. U.S. Division of State 2005 Report on terrorism It stated the rebels even “kidnapped 30 prisoners” who had been members of anti-Maoist teams.

Fascinatingly, police say the “mastermind” of the breakout was Ajay Kanu, a cantankerous insurgent chief among the many prisoners. Police stated safety on the dilapidated jail was lax and Kanu stayed in contact along with his unlawful group by way of telephone calls and textual content messages to assist them get in. Kanu says this isn’t true.

Lots of of insurgents in police uniforms crossed a dry creek behind the jail, climbed up and down the excessive wall utilizing bamboo ladders, climbed in and opened fireplace with rifles.

The cells had been open whereas meals was being cooked within the kitchen. The rebels went to the gate and opened it. The guard on responsibility watched helplessly. The prisoners – solely 30 of the fugitives had been criminals, the remaining had been awaiting trial – escaped just by strolling out of the gate, disappearing into the darkness. Witnesses stated it was over in lower than an hour.

The mass jailbreak uncovered Bihar’s shaky regulation and order and the rising Maoist insurgency in certainly one of India’s poorest areas. The timing of the rebels’ plan was excellent: the safety scenario was stretched skinny as a consequence of ongoing state elections.

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Native journalist Rajkumar Singh remembers that evening vividly.

After receiving the decision, he rides his bike by a abandoned city attempting to succeed in his workplace. He remembers the distant sounds of gunfire filling the air. The invading rebels additionally tried to assault a neighboring police station.

As he turned onto the primary highway, dim streetlights revealed a chilling sight – dozens of armed women and men in police uniforms blocking the best way and shouting by loudspeakers.

“We’re Maoists,” they declared. “We’re not in opposition to the individuals, solely the federal government. The jailbreak is a part of our protest.

The insurgents planted bombs on the roadside. Some have exploded, close by outlets collapsed, and worry unfold all through the city.

Mr. Singh stated he continued on to his fourth-floor workplace, the place he acquired a second name from the identical inmate.

“Everyone seems to be working. What ought to I do?

“If everyone seems to be working away, it is best to run away too,” Mr. Singer stated.

He then rode by the empty streets to the jail. When he arrived, he discovered the gate open. Rice pudding was in every single place within the kitchen, and the cell door was ajar. There have been no jailers or police in sight.

In a single room, two injured law enforcement officials lay on the ground. Mr. Singh stated he additionally noticed the bloody physique of Bade Sharma, the chief of a feared upper-caste landowner vigilante named Ran, mendacity on the ground. Ranvir Sena, himself a prisoner. Police later stated the rebels shot him as they had been leaving.

The flooring and partitions had been lined with blood-stained, handwritten pamphlets left behind by the rebels.

“By way of this symbolic act, we wish to warn the state and the central authorities that in the event that they arrest revolutionaries and struggling individuals and put them in jail, then we additionally know launch them from jail in a Marxist revolutionary means ,” stated one pamphlet.

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A number of months in the past, I met Kanu in Patna, the chaotic capital of Bihar state, the place the 57-year-old insurgent chief is accused by police of plotting a jailbreak.

On the time of the incident, media studies known as him ‘Bihar’s most wished man’a determine each feared and revered by the police.

Officers recounted how through the escape, a insurgent “commander” took management of the scenario after his comrades handed him an AK-47.

In a dramatic twist, the report stated, he used the weapon “expertly” and shortly modified the journal earlier than allegedly aiming and taking pictures Sharma. Fifteen months later, in February 2007, Kanu was arrested on a railway platform whereas touring from Dhanbad in Bihar to town of Kolkata.

Practically 20 years later, all however six of the 45 preliminary felony instances in opposition to Kanu had been acquitted. Many of the instances stem from jailbreaks, together with Sharma’s homicide. He has been in jail for seven years for one of many instances.

Regardless of his fearsome popularity, Kanu is surprisingly talkative. He spoke sharply and measuredly, downplaying his position within the mass exodus that grabbed headlines. Now the once-feared insurgent is deftly turning his sights on one other battle – a political profession, “combating for the poor, backward castes”.

As a toddler, Kanu spent days and nights listening to his lower-caste farmer father inform tales of communist uprisings in Russia, China and Indonesia. By eighth grade, his father’s comrades urged him to embrace revolutionary politics. He stated his resistance took root early – after his son scored a aim in a soccer match in opposition to a neighborhood landlord, armed upper-caste males stormed their residence.

“I locked myself in,” he recalled. “They got here to me and my sister, ransacked the home and destroyed all the things. That is how the higher castes management us by worry.

Mockingly, whereas finding out political science in school, Kanu led the coed wing of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Occasion (BJP), which waged a battle in opposition to Maoism. After commencement, he co-founded a college, however was kicked out by the constructing proprietor. Returning to the village, tensions with native landowners escalated. Kanu, who was 23 when he was named in a police indictment when a neighborhood strongman was murdered, went into hiding.

“Since then, I’ve been on the run most of my life. I left residence early to mobilize employees and farmers, be part of as a Maoist insurgent and go underground,” he stated. He joined the Communist Occasion of India (Marxist-Leninist), a radical communist group.

“My vocation is liberation – the liberation of the poor. It’s in opposition to the atrocities of the higher castes. I struggle for many who undergo injustice and oppression.

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In August 2002, with a popularity as a feared insurgent chief and a bounty of three million rupees on his head (individuals ought to report his whereabouts in the event that they discover him), Kanu was embarking on a mission to satisfy with underground leaders and arrest them. On the best way to establishing a brand new technique.

As he was reaching his vacation spot in Patna, a automotive overtook him at a busy intersection. “After some time, the plainclothes man jumped out, pulled out his gun and ordered me to give up. I did not resist – I gave up,” he stated.

For the following three years, Kanu was held between prisons as police feared he might escape. “He had a popularity because the sharpest of all of them,” one senior officer advised me. Kanu stated he fashioned prisoner unions in each jail to protest in opposition to corruption — stolen rations, poor medical care, bribes and extra. In a jail, he went on a three-day starvation strike. “There have been conflicts,” he stated, “however I saved asking for higher phrases.”

Kanu painted a grim image of jail overcrowding in India, describing the Jehanabad jail as having greater than double its anticipated capability.

“There was no place to sleep. In my first barracks, 180 prisoners had been crammed into an area that would solely accommodate 40 individuals. Fifty of us would sleep for 4 hours whereas others sat at the hours of darkness ready and chatting. . When the 4 hours are up, it’s the opposite group’s flip. That is how we endure life throughout the partitions.

In 2005, Kanu escaped from jail within the notorious jail break.

“We had been ready for dinner and immediately there was gunfire. Bombs, bullets – it was chaos,” he recalled. “The Maoists rushed in and shouted at us to run away.

Many doubted the simplicity of Kanu’s claims.

“It isn’t so simple as it sounds,” one police officer stated. “Why is dinner being ready late at evening when it is often cooked and served at nightfall and the cells are locked early? That alone raises eyebrows Suspicion of inner collusion.”

Apparently, lots of the escaped prisoners had been again in jail in mid-December – some voluntarily, some not. The rebels didn’t return.

After I requested Kanu if he deliberate the escape, he laughed. “The Maoists liberated us – liberation is their job,” he stated.

However when pressed once more, Kanu fell silent.

The irony deepened when he lastly shared a narrative from jail.

A policeman as soon as requested him if he deliberate to flee once more.

“Sir, will the thief let you know what he desires to steal?” Kanu replied bitterly.

His phrases hold within the air, coming from a person who insists he was not concerned within the escape plan.