Somen: Spilling the beans?

Feb. 27: The rumour of nine bullet-riddled bodies lying on Ayodhya hills in Purulia was planted to trap security forces, arrested CPI (Maoist) state chief Somen has apparently told the CID.

Police had, however, decided against climbing the hills on the night of February 19.

“The rumour spread like wildfire that evening. Now it is clear that had policemen from Purulia town headed straight for the hills, the guerrillas would have ambushed them,” said a CID officer.

The rumour spread a couple of days after Orissa and Jharkhand police launched a massive crackdown following the rebels’ offensive in Nayagarh. On the night of February 15, some 500 rebels carried out simultaneous attacks on the Nayagarh town police station in Orissa, the district police armoury, the police training school, two neighbouring police stations and an outpost. Sixteen people were killed in the attack.

“The Maoists believed that 11 of their prominent activists were killed in the counter-offensive and so they planned the revenge strike. Since Ayodhya hills falls on the Bengal-Jharkhand border, they thought Jharkhand police would join their Bengal counterparts and rush to the hills,” said an officer of the CID, which arrested Somen from Hridaypur station in North 24-Parganas on February 23.

The plan proved to be futile. “A large police contingent split into five groups and scanned the Ayodhya forests on February 20,” said the officer.

Maoists have several hideouts and base camps in the forest, he added.

Somen told the sleuths that the rebels had drawn up a fresh hit list. “Surprisingly, most CPM leaders on the list are from Nadia, Murshidabad and North and South 24-Parganas. We are trying to find out the outfit’s operatives hiding in and around Calcutta,” said Rajeev Kumar, the CID special inspector-general (operations).

Somen apparently told the sleuths that the Maoists were planning to strengthen their network in the tea gardens of north Bengal. “We want to capitalise on the discontent among workers of closed tea gardens,” a CID officer quoted him as saying.

Somen denied ever travelling outside India when asked if he had been to Bangladesh.

The police today picked up Sushil Mahato from his house at Baratelia village in Lalgarh, West Midnapore. Mahato’s job was to allegedly find suitable places to plant mines.