Brijesh Singh

Some Lesser Known Facts About Brijesh Singh

• Brijesh Singh is an influential politician from Eastern Uttar Pradesh (Purvanchal). He is also known for his long criminal records; ranging from kidnapping to murder.

• He was born into a landlord Thakur family in Dharauhara village of Varanasi where he spent most of his childhood.

• Brijesh was brilliant at studies, and he passed his intermediate examination with excellent marks.

• To make a career in the field of science, he took admission in a B.Sc. course at a college in Varanasi; however, he was destined to become a criminal; as his father was killed by his political rivals, and Brijesh had to left his studies mid-way.

  

• Brijesh’s father, Raghunath Singh was an employee in Ghazipur’s irrigation department. Besides being an irrigation employee, his father was also active in local politics. On 27 August 1984, Raghunath Singh was murdered by the Harihar and Panchu gang who were his political rivals.

• Brijesh Singh, who was pursuing a bachelor’s degree in science in Varanasi, took vows to take vengeance for his father’s murder, and he decided to quit his studies, and hence, Brijesh Singh entered the world of crime on the pretext of revenge of his father’s murder.

• After waiting for almost a year, Brijesh Singh got a chance to kill one of the main accused involved in his father’s murder, Harihar Singh. On 27 May 1985, Brijesh killed Harihar Singh in broad daylight. An F.I.R. was lodged against Brijesh Singh, which became the first FIR in his career.

• According to sources, before killing Harihar Singh, he had touched his feet and also gifted him a shawl.

• His next target was the Gram Pradhan of Dharauhara village, Raghunath who was killed by Brijesh in the court premises of Ghazipur in broad daylight. Brijesh used AK-47 to kill Raghunath, and it was the first time in Eastern Uttar Pradesh that a murder had been executed by using AK-47.

• After Raghunath’s murder, the local administration started taking various measures to curb gang wars, including encounters. During one such encounter, Panchu Singh (who was involved in the murder of Brijesh Singh’s father) was also killed.

• Brijesh Singh was in search of the other persons who were involved in his father’s murder, and in 1986, he killed seven people in Sikraura village. The Gram Pradhan Ramchandra Yadav and his four children were among the seven people killed by Brijesh Singh.

  

• Brijesh Singh was among the 13 accused named by the Uttar Pradesh Police in Sikraura massacre; however, due to lack of evidence, Brijesh Singh was acquitted in August 2018; after 32 years of court trials. ^[10]Navbharat Times Later, a woman named Hiravati filed a petition against the Varanasi trial court’s decision to acquit Singh from all charges; however, on 20 November 2023, the Allahabad High Court also acquitted him after concluding all hearings. ^[11]News 18

• A vow to take the revenge of his father’s killing turned Brijesh into a professional criminal and after the Sikraura massacre, there was no looking back for him. He went on to venture into the newer regime of crime, and he expanded his criminal activities of ransom, kidnapping, and murder to entire Purvanchal, Bihar, Jharkhand, and Chhattisgarh.

• Tribhuwan Singh, another strongman from Ghazipur’s Mudiyar village, became his partner in crimes, and both ventured into the business of liquor, silk, and coal.

• Brijesh Singh and Mukhtar Ansari, another strongman politician from Ghazipur, came face-to-face in the ’90s. Both were vying for government tenders and contracts, including PWD, railways, and coal. Since then, huge bloodshed has occurred in the region because of the multiple gang wars between the Ansari and Brijesh Singh gang. 

• Reportedly, Brijesh and Mukhtar Ansari were good friends before becoming rivals. ^[12]One India

• To save his life from the Ansari gang, Brijesh Singh escaped Mumbai where he met Subhash Thakur. Subhash Thakur was a close aide of Dawood Ibrahim, and he introduced Brijesh to Dawood.

• After coming into the contact of Dawood Ibrahim, Brijesh Singh committed the JJ Hospital shootout where he killed four members of the Gawli gang. Dawood had asked Brijesh to accomplish the JJ Hospital shootout to take the revenge of the murder of his brother-in-law, Ibrahim Kaskar. Brijesh Singh committed the crime on 12 February 1992 in the disguise of a doctor.

• In Mumbai’s JJ Hospital shooting case, Brijesh Singh was booked under TADA; however, after years of court trials, he was acquitted in 2008 due to lack of evidence. ^[13]BBC

  

• After the JJ Hospital shooting case, Brijesh Singh rose to become a national-level mafia from the mafia of Purvanchal.

• After the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts, Brijesh Singh distanced himself from Dawood. Thereafter, Brijesh tried to kill Dawood on multiple occasions but failed. This act of Brijesh earned him the nicknames of “Desh Bhakt Don,” “Hindu Don,” and the “Robin Hood of East.”

• Brijesh Singh was also named in the 2001 Usari Chatti killings in Ghazipur in which two people were killed. ^[14]Lokmat

• In the ’90s, Brijesh also worked for Surya Dev Singh as a sharpshooter. Surya Dev Singh is a coal mafia and strongman politician from Jharkhand’s Jhariya. Reportedly, in 2003, Brijesh was named in the kidnapping and murder of Rajiv Ranjan Singh, the son of Surya Dev Singh. ^[15]BBC

• Later, Brijesh Singh took the shelter of Krishnanand Rai, the BJP MLA from Mohammadabad Assembly, but the Ansari gang killed Krishnanand Rai in 2005, and Brijesh Singh had to flee to Odisa where he stayed on the alias of Arun Kumar Singh and ran a real estate business until his arrest in 2008.

• On 24 January 2008, Brijesh Singh was arrested in Bhubaneswar by the special cell of Delhi Police.

• In February 2008, he was taken to Varanasi Central Jail and thereafter, he spent the next three years in the prisons of Gujarat and Maharashtra.

• After his return to Varanasi Central Jail in 2012, he was remanded under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act, 1999 (MCOCA) by the Delhi Police and was lodged in Tihar Jail.

  

• While in jail, he contested the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections from Chandauli’s Saiyad Raja constituency on a Bharatiya Samaj Party ticket and lost.

• His wife, Annapurna Singh has been the MLC on a BSP ticket.

• In 2016, Brijesh Singh became an MLC as an independent with back-door support of the BJP.

  

• A Hindi web series, Raktanchal was released in 2020, which is reportedly based on real-life events from the ’80s of Purvanchal. This MX Player Orginal crime drama series reportedly depicts the rivalry between Brijesh Singh and Mukhtar Ansari.