By Sudeshna Sarkar, IANS
Kathmandu : Held in Nepal’s prisons for almost five years, a dreaded Indian don has now unleashed terror inside a jail, triggering an agitation by petrified prisoners.
Bihar’s dreaded mafia don Pappu Yadav, in Biratnagar Jail in eastern Nepal, has created panic by giving a five-day ultimatum to two prisoners for whom he arranged a contract killing from behind the bars. The don’s name is also the nickname of Indian MP Rajesh Ranjan who is lodged in Tihar Jail in New Delhi.
“If you have an appetite, your moustache will not come in the way,” Nepal’s tabloid media quoted an old proverb to indicate that Yadav, who was arrested in Nepal in 2002 for a string of kidnappings and extortion, is carrying on undeterred with his profession from his prison cell.
One of Yadav’s hitmen, Dasharath Chaudhary, was hired by a resident of Nepal’s Itahari town, Madan Shrestha, to kill his sister Sita. Shrestha reportedly agreed to pay the gunman NRS 1.5 million for the contract killing.
However, after he executed the “job”, Chaudhary was arrested and gave the police the names of his client and the latter’s accomplice, a man called Dil Bahadur Pradhan, who too were arrested.
The trouble started when all the three men were put in the Biratnagar prison where Yadav too has been kept for nearly three years now.
Chaudhary complained to his mentor that he had not been paid for the hit job and subsequently Yadav told Shrestha and Pradhan that they would have to pay up within five days or face the consequences.
As punishment for the non-payment, Yadav has slapped an additional amount of NRS 100,000.
The two terrified men managed to slip out a letter to a police team that was on inspection Thursday, describing their plight.
Though the jail authorities tried to call Yadav and question him, the don refused, a Nepali tabloid said.
Neither have the police been able to transfer the two threatened prisoners to a safe place outside the jail, the Naya Patrika daily said.
Nepal’s media have been reporting Yadav’s royal lifestyle even in prison.
He has been getting a steady supply of opium and a recent search of his cell yielded a knife and a pair of handcuffs.
Media reports Sunday said other prisoners are on an agitation, demanding security. They are said to have locked the main gate of the prison.