Himalaya Harbinger, Rudrapur Bureau.
The Udham Singh Nagar Police have arrested Surendra Mahato, 61, a fugitive wanted for 21 years in a kidnapping case. Mahato, who had a Rs 25,000 reward on his head, was arrested from the Deoria district in Uttar Pradesh on the Bihar border. He had been evading capture since 2003 after kidnapping a 13-year-old girl in the Kichha area.
The case was filed on March 12 in 2003, when Vijendra, a resident of Kichha, reported his daughter missing. In his complaint with the police, he stated that she had not returned home from school and was believed to have been kidnapped by Mahato and his brother Chhotalal. A case under sections 363 and 366 of the IPC was registered, and in 2004, Chhotalal was arrested and the girl was also recovered. However, Surendra managed to escape and had been on the run ever since.
Despite several attempts by the police to capture him, Mahato had consistently evaded arrest by moving between Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh. In October 2004, he was declared an absconder by the court, and a reward of Rs 500 was initially placed on his head. As the years passed, the district’s Senior Superintendent of Police increased the reward to Rs 25,000 and intensified the search. Following a tip-off, the police team arrested Mahato on Saturday and berough him to Rudrapur. He confessed to the crime during interrogation, revealing that he had been hiding as a daily wage laborer for years.
SSP Udham Singh Nagar Manikant Mishra said, “We were determined to bring him to justice. No matter how long a criminal runs, the law will eventually catch up. During his 21 years on the run, Mahato moved frequently between Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh, using different identities and working as a laborer to evade capture. Initially, he fled to Jharkhand after the kidnapping, where he worked as a paddy planter. Later, he hid in Gorakhpur of Uttar Pradesh, and eventually settled in Deoria, working as a daily wage laborer, believing that the police would never catch up with him after so many years”.
