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 house.

“The Maoists have attacked the jail. Persons are being killed! “I am hiding in the bathroom,” one prisoner gasped into his cellphone, 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 experiences described it as “darkish, dank and filthy”. It was initially designed to deal with round 230 folks, however can maintain as much as 800 prisoners.

The Maoist insurgency started in a small village in Naxalbari, West Bengal, within the late 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 determine a communist society, a motion that has claimed the lives of no less than 40,000 folks.

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 cell phones.

“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 night time of November 13, 2005, 389 prisoners, together with many insurgents, escaped from Jehanabad Jail, making it the biggest jail break in India (and presumably Asia). At the very least two folks had been killed in a jail shootout and a police officer’s rifle was stolen in the course of 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 through 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 stream behind the jail, climbed up and down the excessive wall utilizing bamboo ladders, climbed in and opened hearth 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 obligation watched helplessly. The prisoners – solely 30 of the escapees 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 night time vividly.

After receiving the decision, he rides his motorbike via 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 street, dim streetlights revealed a chilling sight – dozens of armed women and men in police uniforms blocking the best way and shouting via loudspeakers.

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

The insurgents planted bombs on the roadside. Some have exploded, close by retailers collapsed, and concern 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 prisoner.

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

“If everyone seems to be working away, you must run away too,” Mr. Singer stated.

He then rode via the empty streets to the jail. When he arrived, he discovered the gate open. Rice pudding was in all places 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 coated with blood-stained, handwritten pamphlets left behind by the rebels.

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

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Just a few 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 experiences referred to as him ‘Bihar’s most wanted man’a determine each feared and revered by the police.

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

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

Almost twenty years later, all however six of the 45 preliminary prison 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 repute, 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 objective in a soccer match in opposition to a neighborhood landlord, armed upper-caste males stormed their house.

“I locked myself in,” he recalled. “They got here to me and my sister, ransacked the home and destroyed every little thing. That is how the higher castes management us via concern.

Satirically, whereas learning political science in school, Kanu led the coed wing of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Social gathering (BJP), which waged a struggle 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 house early to mobilize employees and farmers, be part of as a Maoist insurgent and go underground,” he stated. He joined the Communist Social gathering 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 combat for individuals who undergo injustice and oppression.

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In August 2002, with a repute as a feared insurgent chief and a bounty of three million rupees on his head (folks 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 automobile 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 subsequent three years, Kanu was held between prisons as police feared he may escape. “He had a repute 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 capability of Jehanabad jail as 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 folks. Fifty of us would sleep for 4 hours whereas others sat at nighttime ready and chatting. . When the 4 hours are up, one other group will take their 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 all of the sudden 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 is not so simple as it sounds,” one police officer stated. “Why is dinner being ready late at night time when it is normally cooked and served at nightfall and the cells are locked early? That alone raises eyebrows Suspicions of inside collusion.”

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

Once I requested Kanu if he deliberate the escape, he laughed. “The Maoists liberated us – liberation was 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 inform you what he needs to steal?” Kanu replied bitterly.

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