Meet Munna Bajrangi, Mirzapur’s real life dreaded gangster who killed 40 people

These days everyone is binge-watching Mirzapur Season 2, the web-series that has got everyone hitched. Though it is entirely a fictional one,it is strange that the story of Uttar Pradesh’s gang wars is quite close to reality too. That is perhaps why it has hit a chord with the audiences.

We all know Munna Tripathi alias Munna Bhaiya from Mirzapur, right? Did you know there existed a real-life gangster called Munna Bajrangi who was hailed as the king of Mirzapur?

Munna Bajrangi, whose real name was Prem Prakash Singh, was a gangster and a politician hailing from Purvanchal region of Uttar Pradesh.

He was an arms lover who had a troubled childhood.

Bajrangi had studied only until Class 5. He was fond of arms and had entered the world crime at quite an early age. He was initially a carpet weaver, who committed his first murder at the age of 17.

Later, he joined a gang led by Gajraj Singh in Jaunpur. In the 1990s, he became the right hand of don-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari, an MLA from Mau on a Samajwadi Party (SP) ticket, and murdered MLA Krishnanand Rai, who was working with Ansari’s rival Brijesh Singh, in 2005 and another BJP leader Ramchandra Singh.
Bajrangi was a supported of Samajwadi Party headed by Mulayam Singh Yadav.

In over two decades, he murdered over 40 people. He is also credited with introducing the use of AK-47 in gang wars of UP. He became a household name who was dreaded in the distrcits of Bhadohi Mau, Ghazipur, Varanasi and Jaunpur.

Rai was murdered in broad daylight after Bajrangi and his gang members fired 400 bullets from six AK-47 rifles. Rai was accompanied by six people, and a total of 67 bullets were recovered from the seven bodies. A police officer called it the largest “display of firepower” in an Uttar Pradesh mafia battle.

And then, Bajrangi was on Police’s most wanted list. A cash reward of Rs.700,000 was announced on him. Soon, he moved to Mumbai, and in 2009, he was arrested there, where he was living with his wife and three teenaged children since 2003.

Bajrangi fought in the Uttar Pradesh Legislative elections, as a joint candidate of the Apna Dal and the Peace Party from Mariyahu, in 2012 while he was in Tihar jail.

In July 2018, he was shot dead by another prisoner Sunil Rathi. Why did Rathi kill him? Rathi reportedly alleged that he killed Bajrangi because he made comments over his appearance by calling him “chubby”.