Dreaded gangster Santosh Jha, serving life sentence for the murder of two engineers of a private road construction company in Bihar’s Darbhanga, was shot dead at Sitamarhi civil court on Tuesday.
An unidentified man opened fire on him as he was walking into the court premises with a policeman walking behind him. The attacker fled the scene soon after.
Santosh Jha and another gangster Mukesh Pathak had wreaked havoc in the Mithila region of Bihar till his arrest in 2016. They had many cases of murder, kidnapping and extortion pending against them.
One of his associate Abhishek Jha, also serving life sentence in an engineer double murder case, was killed in July this year while being produced before a local court in east Champaran.
The duo had tried to extort a private company which was hired by the state government for constructing a road in Darbhanga.
When the management of the company did not pay heed to their demands, the henchmen of Santosh Jha sprayed bullets on company engineers Brajesh Kumar Singh and Mukesh Kumar Singh on December, 26, 2015 resulting in their deaths.
The Moist turned gangster Santosh Jha had created Bihar Peoples Liberation Front on the lines of a banned Maoist outfit. Earlier he and his associate Vikas worked for the Maoists which helped him build a notorious gang in north Bihar.
Santosh Jha was himself a sharp shooter having a penchant for firing from automatic rifle AK-47 which was used in the killing of engineers as well.
There were 40 members in his gang whom he paid a monthly salary for gaining loyalty.
Jha was arrested by a team of special task force from a train at Ramgarh railway station in Jharkhand on June, 11, 2016. A local court in Darbhanga awarded him and his nine associates, life imprisonment in the murder case of engineers on March, 7 this year.
