Operation Biswas, a police drive against Maoists in the bordering areas of Bihar, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh, has turned out to be hugely successful for the men in uniform.

While a self-proclaimed zonal commander and a sub-zonal commander were arrested, a top Maoist leader evading arrest for about two decades surrendered to the police in the past two weeks.

The self-styled sub-zonal commander of Sone-Ganga-Vindhyachal zone, Lalbrat Kol alias Kamal, was arrested following an encounter with the Sonbhadra police on the UP-Bihar border on Tuesday.

A carbine, one 303 bore rifle and a large number of ammunition were found on the arrested Maoist leader.

Kamal, a resident of Sonbhadra district of UP, was primarily active in areas falling under Kaimur and Rohtas districts.

“Kamal’s arrest is a major setback for the banned outfit,” Rohtas superintendent of police (SP) Manu Maharaj said. He added that Kamal was wanted in connection with the murder of three members of a family at Banda village in Rohtas. He was the third in the rank after Munna Vishwakarma, the “zonal commander, and Abhay Yadav, the “sub-zonal commander” of the banned outfit.

Inspector-general (operations) Amit Kumar said the drive against the banned organisation would continue. “Over 60 top Maoist leaders, including zonal and sub-zonal ‘commanders’ of the outfit, have been arrested in the past five months,” he added.

Abhay surrendered before the Rohtas police on Monday with one Insas rifle, 124 cartridges and nine magazines. A resident of Babhan Talab in Rohtas, Abhay was wanted in over four dozen cases of Maoist violence in Kaimur-Rohtas region, the police said.

On May 24, 2012, Vishwakarma, who had survived an attack during a joint operation of the security personnel of three states a few months ago, landed in the police net in Sonbhadra district.

He was the most sought-after Maoist leader for the police of the three neighbouring states. “Vishwakarma fled to Sonbhadra after an intensive combing drive was launched against the Naxalites in Rohtas. His arrest is fallout of a team work. The officials of the three states shared intelligence inputs and the operation was launched accordingly,” Rohtas additional superintendent of police (operation) B.K. Mandal said.

During interrogation, Vishwakarma, who was carrying a reward of Rs 2 lakh on his head, told the police that he had joined the organisation in 2004 to take revenge against one Dayashankar of Gazipur (UP), who had forcibly grabbed his land. “My elder brother died after he came to know about the forcible possession of land by Dayashankar,” a police officer quoted the Maoist leader as saying.