Behmai Massacre Case: Special Court Postpones Verdict To January 24

A special court on Saturday adjourned the hearing in the Behmai massacre to January 24 in the absence of the case diary, allegedly by bandit Phoolan Devi nearly four decades ago. Special judge Sudhir Kumar, who was likely to pronounce the verdict, pulled up the court official for the absence of the case diary at the time of delivering the verdict and asked him to place it before the court on January 24.

The special court for hearing dacoity-related cases was expected to deliver the verdict in the 1981 Behmai massacre case on January 6, but it allowed the defence counsel to submit its written arguments by January 16, district government counsel Raju Porwal said.

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“Bandit Queen” Phoolan Devi, who later turned to politics, along with her gang members were accused of killing the 20 people belonging to the Thakur community at Behmai village in Kanpur Dehat on February 14, 1981. The non-descript Behmai village, that shot into prominence after the killings, is 170 km from state capital Lucknow and over 400 km from national capital New Delhi.

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Phoolan Devi had stormed into Behmai in what was described as an attack to avenge her alleged rape there by two other bandits - Lala Ram and Sri Ram - both Thakurs, a dominant caste in the village.

Two years after the incident, she had surrendered to the Madhya Pradesh police in 1983 and went on to become a Lok Sabha MP from Mirzapur. She was shot dead outside her MP bungalow in New Delhi on July 25, 2001.

(With PTI inputs)