Dacoits in the parched and rugged terrain of Bundelkhand have asked the villagers to give them 35 buckets of water daily or face the bullet. Terrified residents of as many as 28 villages have been obeying the order of the dacoits of the Balkhariya gang since Wednesday.
“A few bandits are still active in the ravines. They ask for water, food and shelter from the villages. We heard about this and asked the villagers not to obey them,” police officer Suresh Kumar Singh, told The Pioneer, on telephone from Banda, 300 km south-west of lucknow.
Bagwat Prasad, of Akhil Bharatiya Samaj Sewa Sansthan (ABSSS), an NGO working with the villagers, said that everyone knows about the dacoits’ diktat and the hapless villagers are forced to carry water to the hideouts of the dacoits. Sometimes they trek almost 4 km just to give one bucket of water to the brigands.
“Water is very scarce in this region and the poor villagers can hardly meet their own needs. Now, on top of this they have to supply water to the dacoits,” Prasad lamented.
Sandwiched between Uttar Pradesh (UP) and neighbouring Madhya Pradesh, Bundelkhand is generally rain-starved and has been experiencing a drought-like situation since 2007. Normally Bundelkhand gets 52 days of rain per year, but as per the records of the metrological department of India, rainfall has been restricted to just 24 days per year, for the last six years, leading to a major water crisis in the area.
The supply line of the dacoits is maintained with meticulous planning. They have divided 28 villages into a cluster of three, and each cluster is asked to provide 35 buckets of water.
Prasad said the dacoits live in the interiors where water bodies are scarce and despite the drought, they dare not come out into the open because of the police. So they are forcing the villagers to bring the water to them.
“Any “request” from the Balkhariya gang is an order. No one dares to say no to the gang. Thus, the villagers are forced to supply water to the dacoits,” Prasad said.
Balkhariya gang is run by Sudesh Kumar Patel, who has a bounty of Rs 2.5 lakh on his head. He is a dreaded name in the Bundelkhand region as he gunned down a village chief in 2002 and is also facing 50 criminal cases including charges of murder, loot and kidnapping. Patel heads a gang of ten who use sophisticated weapons like carbines and other automatic weapons. He is also tech savvy and is known to have used over two dozen mobile SIM cards to escape the police dragnet.
However, Deputy Inspector-General Amitabh Yash told The Pioneer on telephone that he doubted if the dacoits had issued any diktat like that. The Bundelkhand region is famous as a breeding ground for dacoits. It had produced dacoits like Nirbhay Gujjar, Malkhan Singh, Dadua and Phoolan Devi.
Raja Yadav, founder of the Anand Dham Samiti, an organisation that has been working on water issues in the region for the last decade, said that unlike the dacoits of yore who picked up guns to protest injustices of the feudal order or avenge personal wrongs, banditry is now a means of gaining influence.
Dr RB Singh, assistant professor of social work at the BR Ambedkar Institute of Social Sciences, explained why Bundelkhand is a rich breeding ground for dacoits. “A lack of entrepreneurial spirit, the love of an easy life, a feudalistic social order and the acceptance of corruption have contributed to taking to crime as a viable option,” he said in his research paper.