Chameli Das. Picture by Amit Dutta

Calcutta, Aug. 29: A woman Maoist leader from Bihar was today arrested in a central Calcutta neighbourhood not far from where a zonal commander of the rebel outfit was held only a week ago.

Munger resident Chameli Das, who is in her early 40s and faces more than a dozen cases, including an attack on a SDO office, had been staying in the city for the past five days with her trader-husband Badri Das, police said. The woman had come from Bihar, apparently, for treatment of an eye problem.

“She had played a key role in the attack on the SDO office in Munger in 2008. Besides, there are more than a dozen cases, including murder, pending against her in Bihar,” said Rajeev Kumar, additional commissioner of police who oversees Calcutta police’s special task force (STF), which made the arrest with Bihar officers.

An STF officer involved in the operation said they had received a tip-off three days ago that Chameli was in the city. “Bihar police gave us some details of Chameli and her husband Badri Das. We were told that Badri was staying at a rented place in the Amherst Street police station area for the past couple of years and that he was running a business.”

Another officer said Badri was a shoe trader and was staying on 123 Keshab Chandra Sen Street. An investigation revealed that a woman came to Badri’s house a few days ago. He had told neighbours she was his wife and that she hailed from Munger’s Sangrampur. The description of the woman provided by neighbours matched the information Bihar police had given the STF earlier. “We immediately informed them (Bihar police),” said the officer.

STF officers said Chameli, a squad leader of the rebels active in Munger, was from the Maoist Communist Centre (MCC) faction before it merged with the People’s War Group (PWG) in 2004 to form the current CPI (Maoist).

The house from where Chameli was picked up in a pre-dawn raid swoop today is close to the Creek Row-Raja Subodh Mullick Square intersection where sleuths had arrested senior Maoist leader Musafir Sahni on August 21.

The 53-year-old, a postgraduate in physics, oversaw rebel operations in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and north Bihar. That arrest had also been carried out in a joint operation by Calcutta and Bihar police.

Police sources had described him as a “big catch”.