Brijesh Singh at a police station in Bhubaneswar on Thursday. Picture by Sanjib Mukherjee

Bhubaneswar/Lucknow, Jan. 24: Uttar Pradesh’s most wanted don was abducted from a crowded Bhubaneswar mall last evening in an operation he himself may not have dared attempt.

Except that it was Delhi police who were kidnapping the elusive kidnap king, Brijesh Singh.

“Some of us thought it was a film shoot. We were looking around for a camera,” said Big Bazaar employee Prachi Mishra.

Customers entering the mall at 8pm were stunned by the sight of a burly man pointing a sten gun at them. His four associates had thrown a ring around a middle-aged man in a black shirt and white trousers, who held shopping bags in both hands.

The five men kicked and punched their captive as they dragged him out by the collar.

“Hat jao. Hum log CID wale hain. Is ke naam sarkar ki taraf se reward hai. Hum log isko le ja rahe hain (Move away. We are from the CID. The government has put a reward on this man. We are taking him away),” the gun-wielding man shouted.

Delhi police wanted Brijesh for three abductions in the capital between 1998 and 2001. Uttar Pradesh has put Rs 5 lakh on his head — the biggest for any state gangster — though the don had faked his death and wound up operations in 2002 after reverses at a rival gang’s hands.

His five captors dragged him into a waiting Honda, threatening the few young men and a lone home guard who dared question them. The car sped off followed by a blue Indica.

Some people noted the numbers and informed the city police about the “kidnapping”. Wireless messages went out and a car chase began. The “abductors” were caught at the airport, where all five flashed their Delhi police ID cards.

“But they hadn’t told us beforehand, so we had to make sure,” a city officer said.

All six were driven back to the city where senior officers satisfied themselves about the captors’ bona fides and told them they must follow the legal procedure. The Delhi policemen left with Brijesh tonight after a court granted transit remand.

In Lucknow, Brij Lal, additional director-general of Uttar Pradesh police, said: “We’ll try to get him here.”

If they can, the state police will finally learn what a man against whom they have over 100 cases, including 22 for murder and kidnapping, looks like. They have no photograph of Brijesh.

Yet, from the early ’90s to 2002, the former Dawood Ibrahim aide ruled eastern Uttar Pradesh where few government contracts — railway, mining, road or construction — were awarded without his sanction. His sway extended from Varanasi and Gorakhpur to the mines of Jharkhand.

The Thakur gangster, brother of BJP legislator Udaynath “Chulbul” Singh, is accused of killing on behalf of politicians and contractors. He is believed to be close to a national-level politician from his own caste and was nearly fielded by the BJP in the 2002 state polls.

Brijesh had parted ways with Dawood along with Chhota Rajan after the 1992-93 Bombay riots. In July 2001, he ambushed the car of Samajwadi Party-backed Independent MLA Mukhtar Ansari — now in jail for the 2005 Mau riots —starting a war that consumed his gang.

The following year, Brijesh vanished, staging his own cremation in Bihar’s Sasaram.

“There are no cases against him in Orissa,” Bhubaneswar police commissioner B.K. Behera said, adding that Brijesh had been living in the state for three years.

Sources in Lucknow said the don had first fled to Nepal and opened a hotel business, then moved to Bhubaneswar to dabble in real estate. He apparently kept shuttling between the two countries on a false passport.