Man arrested 21 years after escaping custody

Photo for representational purpose

A man who had escaped from police custody 21 years ago finally landed in the net of the parole/furlough squad of Ahmedabad rural police recently.

As per a report in the Ahmedabad Mirror, the accused, Shahu Dafer, had escaped from police custody in 1999 and had been absconding since then. He was among the 106 persons-accused of various crimes, facing trial or convicted for crimes- who were rounded up by the police as part of a special month-long drive across the state.

State DGP Ashish Bhatia had instructed CID Crime to arrest such persons who have been roaming freely after either jumping parole or fleeing. The fear was that these people could resort to more crime while out of jail. The drive to arrest such accused was started on October 8. The local crime branch (LCB), Detection of Crime branch (DCB) and special operation group (SOG) were also involved in the drive.

A total of 106 accused, convicts and undertrials were arrested by November 4 when the drive ended. According to sources in the DGP office, these people faced charges of murder, attempt to murder, physical violence, etc. The maximum arrests, 13, were made from Rajkot rural. It was followed by 12 from Banaskantha, 10 from Ahmedabad city, seven from Mehsana and six from Porbandar. As many as 44 of those caught in the past month faced murder charges, nine physical violence and two of loot and robbery. Besides Shahu Dafer, another convict who was caught after a long time of dodging the cops was Shaligram Kalal who had escaped in 2001. He was arrested by the parole/furlough squad of Vadodara police.

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