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Dara's prize money sires a controversy in Orissa

M I Khan in Bhubaneswar

Who caught Dara Singh? The police, definitely.

But who led them to him? An informant, right?

So who should the prize money for his capture go to? The police or the informant?

And so we have a controversy. Orissa Director General of Police B B Panda, who denies there is any trouble over the disbursement, is quick to say that the police are in the reckoning.

Of course, the informant -- Anirudha Dandpat allias Andha Naik -- too will be "rewarded", he adds.

Onlookers say that it is the informant who is entitled to the reward. The issue took a U-turn when the 40 policemen involved in the operation that lead to Dara's arrest laid claim on the purse.

Many now feel that the informant will be cheated out of his reward, as little credit have been attributed to him.

The prize money offered for Dara Singh, said to be responsible for several communal crimes including the killing of Australian missionary Graham Stewart Staines and his two minor sons, is Rs 800,000. While the Central Bureau of Investigation had declared a reward of Rs 500,000, the state government offered to pay Rs 300,000 for information leading to the fugitive.

The controversy started when the superintendent of police concerned declared that the money would be distributed among the police officials who took part in the operation that nabbed the fugitive.

SP Y B Khurania had earlier admitted that an informant was regularly in touch with the police, and was providing vital information. The DIG and DGP too spoke about the role of the informant, sources say.

"The district police will recommend the names of the people whose help led to his arrest," Khurania has reportedly said. But it is rumoured that recommendations have already been made to honour the police party.

Rabindra Kumar Pal alias Dara Singh, 35, was arrested along with his associate Jagannath Munda by the Maurbhanj police on Monday from the forests near Gohira, a tiny village on the Orissa-Bihar border. According to the police, they had first sent a decoy to deliver a gun that the fugitive wanted to buy.

When the fugitive arrived to take delivery, the 40 police personnel in civil dress who had surrounded the place arrested him. The police also said that it had to resort to three rounds of blank fire when Dara Singh and his associate tried to escape.

However, there are different claims about the episode. While the DIG had earlier said that no firing took place, the DGP is said to have disclosed a separate story.

"From the way confusing statements are coming out about the incident, one can presume that there is something that the police wants to hide," a senior police official says. "The police may have added the gun episode to earn credit for it and establish that they underwent a lot of pain to arrest the criminal."

There are quite a few who advocates that the informant, Dandpat, is eligible to the prize money more than the police. "He risked his life to trap Dara," this camp point out.

"The police had earlier combed the same forests without any success. Without the help of the informer, Dara Singh would not have been arrested," they hold. "He was regularly committing heinous crimes one after the another, but always managed to evade the police dragnet."

Ironically, even police officials admit that they couldn't have managed the feat without Dandpat.

ALSO SEE:
'Are you sure he is Dara?'

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