Dacoit chieftain Rambabu Gadaria slain in encounter

Gwalior, Apr 17 (UNI) Dacoit chieftain Rambabu Gadaria, who carried a reward of Rs 5 lakh, was shot dead this morning during an encounter in Kanerkho forest on the Shivpuri-Ashok Nagar district border less than a year after his elder brother Dayaram was similarly eliminated.

Incidentally, the Gadarias' sister Ramshri Baghel contested the March bypoll in Gwalior Lok Sabha constituency as the Rashtriya Samanta Dal nominee and bagged more than 50,000 votes.

Rambabu's elimination sounded the death knell for the Gadaria gang that had a reign of terror in Madhya Pradesh's Gwalior-Chambal region for a decade. The gang, which carried a total reward of Rs 15 lakh, was led by Rambabu and Dayaram who was slain in August 2006.

''Two of Rambabu's accomplices managed to flee today. The gang was already decimated by previous elimination and arrests. In an effort to rejuvenate the outfit, Rambabu had invited a few locals having criminal background for a meeting at Kanerkho,'' Inspector-General (Gwalior Range) Sarabjit Singh told UNI.

Following a tip-off, DIG (Gwalior Range) Adarsh Katiyar and Shivpuri's Superintendent of Police Sajid Farid Shapu led a team that set up a cordon.

A .315-bore foreign-make gun and cartridges were subsequently seized from the site. The body would be brought to Khod for postmortem and then handed over to relatives for the last rites. Mr Singh congratulated the officers and other personnel involved in the encounter.

Meanwhile at Bhopal, Director-General of Police Anand Rao Pawar said, ''major bandit gangs operating in Gwalior-Chambal region now stand eliminated after today's killing in Shivpuri district. The personnel involved will be rewarded.'' UNI