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When dacoits Sadhna & Babli spoke of 'ideals'

Bhopal: Two days after Madhya Pradesh’s dreaded ‘bandit queen’ Sadhna Patel was arrested by police, cops revealed a recording with an interesting conversation between Patel and another infamous dacoit of MP Babli Kol.

In the audio clip, of a phone conversation, the two dacoit chieftains can be heard discussing decreasing ‘idealism’ and ‘ethics’ among the bandits.



Kol, who carried a reward of Rs 6.5 lakh, was killed in an encounter by Satna police in September this year and Patel, who headed a gang of five and had a reward of Rs40,000 was arrested from Jhansi by Satna police on November 16.

Said to be the last woman dacoit of MP, Sadhna prowled the ravines of Vindhyas since her teenage. Police claim that she had worked with about half a dozen gangs, before setting up her own band of bandits. “After the encounter of Babli Kol, we had come across a recording of a telephone conversation between Kol and Sadhna, which reveals that due to increase police scrutiny, they were not able to carry out too many dacoities. In the recording, Babli can be heard saying that dacoits are no longer ‘baghis’ (rebels) who come to ravines to seek revenge. The discussed how dacoits have become ‘mercenaries’ and due to scarcity of work, there is immense pressure in their profession. Probably they wanted to merge both their gangs, but Kol was killed,” said SP Satna, Riyaz Iqbal. Sadhna Patel, alias Belni, is the daughter of late Budhvilas Patel, a resident of Baghahia village in Uttar Pradesh.

Sources claim that she is 21, however, police say she is almost 28. She came in contact with the dacoits at an early age — as one of her aunts was related to a dacoit, say cops. In August 2018, a case was registered against her at Nayagaon police station in Satna and subsequently police declared a reward of Rs10,000 on her.

Interestingly, this was the first time in 13 years that police had announced a reward for a woman dacoit.

Earlier in 2005, Satna police had declared a reward of Rs5,000 on Rani Gaur who was killed in an encounter in 2012.

“It was in year 2015-16, she first came in touch with dacoit Naval Dhobi, who is in jail now. Sadhna claims that she used to live with a man at that time and was mistreated by him. The man once thrashed her, tore her clothes and left her in the middle of the village in that state. At that time, she went to one of her relatives for help, who introduced her to Naval Dhobi. She says she contacted Naval as she wanted to seek revenge from the man who had mistreated her. However, as Naval did not help her in this endeavour, she eventually left his gang,” said Riyaz Iqbal.

“Sadhna ran a gang of five people. Three of them including Rinku and Deepak Shivhare who carried a reward of Rs10,000 each, were arrested earlier, now she has also been arrested. But the hunt is on for yet another member who was comparatively less active in the gang. There are several unreported cases against these people; we are looking into them,” he added.

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