Cleaning Up Town

ROLL over Kiran Bedi, Shoba Ohatker's on her way. Born in Maharashtra, schooled in Andhra Pradesh, married to a Bihari and serving as a superintendent of police in Darbhanga on the Indo-Nepal border, she's the latest tough cop to hit the news busting kidnappers gangs, cracking down on terrorists front groups and fighting evil politicians. In short, cleaning up the town in the good old way.

An IPS of the 1990 batch, Shoba completed her training in '91, and came to Darbhanga on July 24 last year. Little did she know the sleepy district would soon give her sleepless nights. Soon after taking charge, Shoba cracked down against a number of gangs running kidnapping operations in Darbhanga from across the Indo-Nepal border. A spate of abductions catapulted Darbhanga on India's crime map - police teams from at least three states descended here in the third week of October last. The same month, Shoba despatched a team of her officers to Delhi to arrest Kari Paswan, a notorious Darbhanga criminal who had about 70 cases of murder, kidnapping, rape and loot against him. Though his accomplices were nabbed, Paswan was sheltered at a local leader's residence.

Shoba has also led raids against notorious gang members of Babloo Srivastava and Irfan Goga, both having ISI links; and dreaded associates of Faizul Rahman, known to work for Dawood Ibrahim. Their operations thwarted by her presence, they began to plot with the politicians of the area her exit, either by transfer, or through death.

This came to light when on January 24 this year, the Delhi Police arrested five criminals - Abdullah Khan Rahman, Arshad Hussain, Khalid Siddique, Tariq Siddique and Md Akbar Ansari alias Fighter - of the notorious Babloo Srivastava gang in connection with the kidnapping of 22-year-old Gaurav, son of Rajesh Rathi, of Rathi Super Steel fame. Abdullah, Shoba discovered later, was employed as a taxi-driver in the Rathi steel plant. During their interrogation, the five confessed about using their political connections to have Shoba transferred elsewhere, failing which they planned to eliminate her. They even made an alleged payment of Rs 10 lakh to local leader and three-term MP of the rjd, Mohammad Ali Ashraf Fatmi.

Meanwhile, in order to discredit her as a bjp agent, someone mentioned her name and forged her signature in the visitors' diary to indicate shed met L.K. Advani and sought his help to get her transferred out of Darbhanga since she had received threats to her life. The signature, it was discovered later, didn't match hers.

Fatmi denied his involvement in the case at a press conference, but his name has cropped up at regular intervals. His number figured in the telephone printouts Shoba recovered when she led an operation to rescue the kidnapped Amarendra Singh, son of a Muzaffarpur-based businessman. Amarendra was released without any ransom being paid. A month later, Shoba uncovered another Fatmi connection when Darbhanga-based Urdu scribe Atiq-ur-Rahman was arrested along with five other gang members.

The discovery of a possible nexus has strengthened Shoba's determination to disrupt it, notwithstanding the threat to her life. She now treats politicians as an occupational hazard and says categorically: I'm still busy exposing their nexus in the district; I'll not rest till they're finished off from my district. Meanwhile, she continues her work, whether its tackling office files, paying routine visits to the thanas or simply chasing criminals. There have been no orders of a transfer yet, but even if there were, Shoba says she'll do what duty demands wherever she is. One thing she's certain of - she'll never toe any politician's line.