LUCKNOW: Cheda Passi, popularly known as “the man-killer” whose name was a terror to the village folk in certain districts of the United Provinces and who had collected around him a band of about 40 young desperadoes, is awaiting his trial in the Lucknow District Jail Hospital with two deep wounds in the chest and neck which he received yesterday [March 30] in the exciting encounter with the Police a few miles from here.

Churai, one of Cheda Passi’s closest associates, succumbed to his wounds this morning.

Cheda Passi, aged about 40, who had been mainly operating in the districts of Lucknow, Barabanki, Sitapur, Hardoi and Unao for the last 10 years, has been responsible for a large number of dacoities and murders, and among his victims were included four police officers, three police constables, one chowkidar and three informers. The authorities had offered a reward of Rs.1,000 for his arrest and he himself in a spirit of bravado had announced that he would pay four times the amount to anybody taking him alive.

The proud Deputy Superintendent of Police, Lucknow, Mr. Jamnadas Tripathi, whose two bullets penetrated Cheda Passi’s chest and neck yesterday, [told] the ‘Associated Press’ [that] “the whole raid took three minutes”.

Published in Dawn, April 1st, 2019