Gangster Mukeem Kala triggered Kairana's 'exodus'?

MEERUT: The debate on whether the alleged "Hindu exodus" in Kairana was due to religious persecution or not rages on, but what most people seem to be in agreement about is the deterioration of law and order in the region. And the sole person credited with whipping up such a frenzy of fear is a 25-year-old who goes by the name of Mukeem Kala, a local who rose from being a manual labourer to a dreaded gangster in just six years.
Born in Jahanpura village near Kairana, Kala committed his first recorded crime in 2010 at the age of 19 in Panipat.

"He grew up in a poor family . His father used to smuggle countrymade weapons for a living. In 2010, Kala was working as a labourer in a Panipat house.He robbed the owner of Rs 18 lakh and got caught," said a resident of Jahanpura on the condition of anonymity .

The robbery landed Kala in Haryana's Karnal jail, where he met the infamous gangster Mustafa Kagga, who inducted him into his interstate gang.

"In a very short span of time, he grew to become Kagga's second-in-command," the local resident, a lawyer, said.

In December 2011, Kagga was killed in a police encounter and Kala took over the reins of the gang.Kairana became the gang's headquarters and they operated across three states- UP, Uttarakhand and Haryana.

Shamli SP Vijay Bhushan told TOI, "The Mukeem Kala gang had become very notorious. In just three years, he had over 30 criminal cases lodged against him. These included dacoity, murder and extortion.The Shamli police took this very seriously and neutralised the gang completely . Today, the terror of Mukeem Kala has come to an end."

But not many in Kairana are convinced it has.

Most of the fact-finding teams have been told by local residents about Kala.

In 2014, he was sent to jail but many say he was running his criminal empire from inside prison.

"Five men had barged into our shop in Kairana on November 30, 2013," Mukesh Garg, a local, said. "They demanded Rs 10 lakh as extortion money . We refused and informed the police. However, the police did little to nab the culprits. On August 24, 2014, a couple of men entered our premises and pumped bullets into my two brothers. I left the town and resettled in Muzaffarnagar."

Bhusan, though, insists the people needn't fear the gangster anymore. "The last major extortion-related murder happened in 2014, after which we booked the accused under National Security Act (NSA). The Mukeem Kala gang was the one major gang operating out of Kairana. It had a total of 29 active members. Of these, four were killed in a police encounter and the rest, including Kala, are in jail," the officer said.

NHRC team in Shamli on fact-finding mission

A four-member team of National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) arrived in Shamli on Monday to collect facts on the alleged exodus of 346 Hindu families from Kairana and 60 from Kandhla, as claimed by local BJP MP Hukum Singh.

Various other teams have visited the towns to take stock of the situation.