18 don-turned-MLA's henchmen arrested, cache of arms seized

Jaunpur, Aug 1 (UNI) Police have arrested 18 heavily armed henchmen of don-turned-MLA from Rari Dhananjay Singh, after they allegedly made an abortive bid on the life of a police officer here.

Nine firearms, three sharp-edged weapons, a large quantity of live cartridges and eight vehicles were also seized.

Superintendent of Police Shachi Ghildiyal said today the MLA's supporters were intercepted by Badlapur police station in charge J P Singh late last night, when they were coming from Lucknow.

However, the criminals fired at Mr Singh and fled the scene.

The information was soon flashed to the nearby Baksha police station, that led to the arrest of the occupants of eight vehicles.

The MLA was not travelling in the carcade.

The seized arms included three rifles, three double barrel guns, one single barrel gun, one revolver and one nine mm pistol.

Those arrested were identified as Jitendra Singh, Shabbe Singh, Rajesh Singh, Ajay Singh, Jai Prakash Tiwari, Jitendra Rathore, Vivek Mishra, Ashish Singh, Munna Kumar Yadav, Navin Kumar Singh, Pankaj Yadav, Ashok Singh, Nitish Kumar Prajapati, Hari Prakash Singh, Tej Bahadur Yadav, Arvind Singh, Tejendra Singh and Javed Abbas.

Ms Ghildiyal said they hail from Sitapur, Lucknow and Jaunpur districts in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana.

Meanwhile, she had announced a reward of Rs 2,500 for the police team.

Investigations are on.

UNI XC-VS SI DS1531