Behmai massacre / Decision may come today after 39 years

On 14 February 1981, Phoolan and 35 of his associates shot 26 people in Behmai village, 20 died The verdict was to come on 6 January in the Behmai case, but the counsel for the accused filed a petition for arguments.

Kanpur: Sessions court may pronounce its verdict on Saturday in the Behmai village of Kanpur Dehat in the murder case 39 years ago. In this, a decision was to come in it on January 6, but then the defense asked the court for time to present arguments. The court fixed the verdict as January 18 and the lawyers were given time till January 16 to file arguments.

On 14 February 1981, Phoolan, along with 35 of his comrades, fired hundreds of bullets in 5 minutes on 26 people of Behmai. Of these 20 were killed. Fulan was the main accused, but his name was removed after death. After this, the case was tried on 5 accused Shyam Babu, Bhikha, Vishwanath, Posha and Ram Singh. Of this, Ram Singh died in jail on 13 February 2019. Posha is in jail. The three accused are out on bail.

Phoolan surrendered in 1983, assassinated in 2001 Phoolan Devi was the main accused in the Behmai murder case.

She surrendered in 1983 in Madhya Pradesh. Phoolan came out of jail in 1993. After this, Mirzapur became MP on the SP ticket twice from the Lok Sabha seat. Phoolan was murdered in Delhi by Sher Singh Rana in 2001. After this, Phoolan’s name was removed from the case.

Why was there so much delay in this case?

DGC Raju Porwal states that the case was filed on 14 February 1981. A large scale action followed the incident. Encounters took place and many dacoits were arrested who were not named in the FIR of Behmai. Then the identification was done. Witnesses were taken to jails and identified.

Charge sheets were filed one after another on the basis of identification. It took a long time. The process of trial is that until all the accused are gathered, the charges will not be framed. Sometimes someone was missing, sometimes someone was sick or sometimes on some date there was news of the death of an accused. There were many accused too, whose information was received, but they escaped.

Porwal said- This case came to me in 2012. Separate the file of the accused and get the attachment of the property of the absconding people. Charges were framed against 5 accused in August 2012. By then 33 years had passed. It was also difficult to bring and cross-examine witnesses.

No identity of many accused, no evidence found against anyone.

Advocate Girish Narayan Dubey said – There were a total of 35 accused in the whole case. 11 of these encounters took place. Chargesheet was filed against 15. Phoolan was never caught. He surrendered himself. Twenty Salabad Phoolan was killed in the incident. Apart from this, a final report was filed against any of the eight accused, so no evidence was found or identified against anyone. Because of this he was acquitted.In 2012, many of the 15 people against whom the charge sheet had to be filed, had died and some were absconding. In such a case, a trial was started on the one who appeared in the court.

Phoolan was made Bandit Queen for 40 bigha land.

The 40 bigha land owned by Phoolan’s father was occupied by uncle Mayaram. At the age of 11, Phoolan asked Chacha for land. On this, uncle filed a robbery case against Phoolan. Phoolan was jailed. When she got out of jail, she came in contact with the dacoits. Phoolan was gangraped by people from another gang. To avenge this, Phoolan carried out the Behmai massacre. After this incident, Phoolan started being called Bandit Queen. However, the land for which Phoolan became the Bandit Queen .. her family has not been able to find it even today.