BHOPAL: With bullet-riddled houses, it looks like a village on the Pakistan border. But Rampur Ghat village is on the MP-UP border, and unlucky enough to be caught in the crossfire between two sand mafia gangs.Territorial fight over sand mines of the shrinking Ken river triggered the gunbattle between inter-state gangs, say police. Villagers — and a group of revenue officials — cowered in their homes as bullets flew around on Wednesday night. Some say that 500 rounds were fired. In the morning, bullet and pellet marks were seen on houses and spent cartridge cases littered the ground.Cases of attempt to murder have been registered by MP and UP police against people of either state. Girwan police in UP have filed a case against 12 people, including Brijesh and Kamlesh — sons of BJP MLA from Chandla, R D Prajapati — and his close aide Rudra Pratap Patel. They have been charged with attempt-to-murder, loot and kidnapping. MP police have named three on similar charges.The MLA denied his sons were involved. “The charges are wrong. My sons were not even present on the spot. A team of revenue department was there and they were witness to the firing. They can tell you whether my sons were present,” Prajapati told TOI. He said he visited the village and found walls riddled with bullet marks.Rampur Ghat is about 100km from Chhatarpur town and is located on the banks of Ken river. Across the river is Banda district in Uttar Pradesh. The river has shrunk to about 50m width now. Sand mafia are quite a familiar sight here.Trouble started on Wednesday when a team of officials from revenue and mining departments arrived with Rudra Pratap for demarcation of sand mines. They found an earth moving machine digging sand, and ordered it to be switched off. Immediately, the firing started, said police.The sudden burst of bullets petrified the officials. They miraculously escaped injury but Patel was hit and collapsed on the sands. Revenue officials ran helter-skelter, trying to find cover behind vehicles and trees as bullets flew around them.Joint UP, MP police team to tackle mafiaGangsters from this side of the river retaliated and full-scale gunfight began. Both groups fired at each other from across the river for about an hour. The number of people injured in UP is not known. Villagers huddled inside their huts in terror. Ramdeen, a villager, said, “It seemed to go on forever. We could hear bullets thudding into our homes, and thought we would be killed.”To prevent a repeat, a joint team of UP and MP officials will be constituted soon for demarcation of the sandmines. Chhatarpur collector Ramesh Bhandari said, “I talked to the district collector of Banda. We have decided to form a joint team of Banda and Chhatarpur officials for the demarcation of the sand mines. This should solve the problem.”SP Vineet Khanna confirmed recovery of spent bullet casings and said police are trying to trace the gunmen.

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