And the fear was certainly not without reason in the jungles believed to have always been inhabited by dasyus, who sharing a common space with the wild residents had been a part of the feared ecosystem since as old as the immemorial times of the dasyu turned into the great sage Valmiki, author of the Ramayana, believed to be hailing from the same jungles.

Dense as they still were, the jungles had also since around the late nineties additionally been infested with Maoists, who in the new race for dominance in the forest areas often struggled with the regularly inhabiting dasyus and posed a severe threat to regular police movement, as they occasionally and in a planned manner had been attacking the police or forest personnel and installations using guerilla tactics. The Maoist presence in the jungles added a new dimension to the challenges before the police, who happened to be the most frequent visitors being compulsed by duties to continuously chase the ever changing hideouts of the dasyus and often in search of kidnapped victims. The Police in those days had to make very careful and tactical moves inside the forests, being always on a high alert, since in the absence of regular tourists, any vehicular movement within the jungles could well be deemed as being made by the police who were the exclusive tourists of the jungles. Also, under ever-growing influence of the Maoists, these dense jungles always teeming with wildlife were now gradually becoming less inhabited by criminals, for whom the major hub had now increasingly shifted to the vast diara lying across the Gandak. The Gandak is traditionally called as the ‘Narayani’ on account of it being the seat of the Puranic legend of the fight between the pious Elephant and the crocodile, which originating at its banks near Valmikinagar finally ended at Sonpur, near Patna, with the rescue of the elephant by the Lord Narayan Vishnu himself.

To be continued...