Bihar extortion kingpin arrested

Mukesh Pathak, Bihar’s most wanted kingpin of the extortion racket, was arrested by the Special Task Force (STF) on Monday. Pathak, known to be running his interstate extortion operations in Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal, was arrested from Ramgarh in Jharkhand.

Mukesh Pathak, a close associate of Santosh Jha’s gang, had been evading arrest after his name surfaced in December last year as key accused in the murder case of two engineers, Brijesh Singh and Mukesh Singh.

Claiming that Pathak’s arrest was a big challenge for the police as he kept changing his location and appearance, additional director general of police Sunil Kumar said that separate teams were sent to Orrisa, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat to trace him, “But the STF arrested him from Ramgarh in Jharkhand and we now hope to nab more persons associated with the racket he has been running in Bihar and other states.”

The gangster is currently under police custody in Jharkhand and will be brought back to Patna where, according to the police, his role in other extortion related issues will also be investigated.

“Besides the murder of two engineers we will investigate his role in other cases of extortion and murder,” police said.

According to an estimate, Muskesh Pathak is said to have minted around Rs 100 crore through the extortion racket in Bihar in past few years. So far he has around 16 cases of extortion and murder registered against him.

According to the police sources, Pathak had escaped from judicial custody in July 2015 in a dramatic manner by serving sedative laced sweets to police guards deployed there. They said, “He was undergoing treatment in Sheohar hospital when he escaped.”

Expressing his happiness over the arrest of Mukesh Pathak, Bihar deputy chief minister Tejaswi Yadav said, “He was a terror for Bihar and his arrest is a big achievement for the police.”