Four arrested in Jharkhand's Palamu for highway levy collection, weapons seized

Palamu (Jharkhand), Aug 19 (IANS) Police in Jharkhand's Palamu have arrested four active members of the notorious Rahul Singh gang, which has been terrorizing construction companies and commuters by collecting levy on highways and targeting road and rail projects in the state, officials said.

Senior Superintendent of Police Rakesh Kumar Singh, at a press conference on Tuesday, said that the arrests were made following a tip-off about the gang’s plan to execute a major attack with firearms.

Acting swiftly, SP Singh constituted a special team under SDPO Manibhushan Prasad. The team raided the Akadrahi Aahar area near Pokhraha village and nabbed four suspects after a brief chase.

The arrested men have been identified as Sahajad Alam, 30, Sahil Kumar, 23, Rohit Kumar, 24, and Farhan Qureshi alias Shailu Qureshi, 24.

Police recovered a cache of arms and items used in their extortion racket, including one country-made pistol, an imported Australian-made pistol, 50 rounds of 9 mm cartridges, four mobile phones, two stolen motorcycles (Hero Splendor Plus and Bajaj Pulsar), and Rs 22,000 of extortion money.

During interrogation, the accused confessed to being part of the Rahul Singh gang and admitted their involvement in multiple incidents of intimidation and levy collection.

They also revealed their role in the July 4 Singra flyover firing, in which a labourer was injured. According to police, the attack was carried out by Sahajad Alam and Sahil Kumar on direct instructions from gang leader Rahul Singh.

The SSP said that the interrogation has yielded “important leads” about the gang’s financial network and the names of other absconding operatives, some of whom are believed to be active in neighbouring districts.

The search operation has been intensified to track them down.

The raid was carried out by a joint team comprising the city zone inspector, station house officers of Sadar and Chainpur police stations, and the Tiger Mobile squad.

Palamu police have urged residents to immediately report any suspicious activity to their local police station or the district control room.

--IANS

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