Another police team had been dispatched the previous night, to hide within the dense sugarcane field on one possible exit route. This particular team was supposed to stay there continuously with ration for 3 days and throughout the nights in a hidden manner.

They had carried blankets and other necessary items for communication with them.

Accompanying me were a company of CRPF commanded by an Inspector aged about 58 years, along with district police and SAP jawans.

At 7 am we started from Bagaha for the diara. It took us about one and half hour to reach Padrauna, the district headquarter of Kushinagar. All of us were already hungry by then, so we decided to stay there for half an hour for breakfast. We stopped at the main chowk of Padrauna, and may have created quite a stir by sheer numbers of the uniformed men.

After breakfast, it took us another hour to reach the starting point. It was from here that our actual foot journey was to begin. Some local informers had joined us here. On reaching the ghat, there were no ghatwars (the local boatmen), and we had to send one informer to swim across and get the boat which was parked about 70 meters on the other side of the river. I received a call from the SP of Kushinagar on my cellphone. He was apprehensive about the information he received from Padrauna. He wanted to know whether the men seen in Padrauna were from Bihar Police, and whether we wanted some help from him. I had never contacted UP Police, because the areas where the raid was to be conducted were fully under my command.

To be continued...