Patna, April 30: Bihar police today claimed to have foiled major operations planned by the Maoists in Bihar following the arrest of seven of its top-ranking leaders, including three central committee members, from Katihar on Friday. Three mobile phones, three pen drives, Naxalite literature, pamphlets and posters were seized from their possession.
The police said that the three central committee members — Varanasi Subramaniam, alias Srikant, alias Sukant, Vijay Kumar Arya, alias Jaspalji, alias Amar, and Pulendu Shekhar Mukherjee, alias Saheb, alias Jhantu — were wanted by the police of several Maoist-hit states, including Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Bihar, Jharkhand and Bengal. All the seven Maoists were arrested from Sheetgaon village under Barsoi police station in Katihar district.
Inspector-general of police (operations) K.S. Dwivedi said the Andhra Pradesh government had announced a reward of Rs 12 lakh for the arrest of Subramaniam, while its Bihar counterpart had announced a cash reward of Rs 3 lakh for Arya’s head.
He said that Subraminiam was the northern regional bureau head in control of operations in Delhi, Haryana and Uttarakhand, while Mukherjee was actively involved in Chhattisgarh. Subramaniam was also assigned to look after international department of the organisation in 2009 after the arrest of Kobad Ghandy, a CC member, he added.
Four others have been identified as Abhimanyu, alias Umesh Yadav, Nokhelal Choudhary, alias Suraj, Shyamji Rishi and Anirudh Ravidas. While Abhimanyu, a resident of Kheria village in Katihar district, is said to be the secretary of Uttar Padesh-Uttarakhand regional bureau, Choudhary and Rishi are the members of the north Bihar eastern zonal committee.
Terming the arrest as “rarest of the rare” Dwivedi said for the first time three central committee members of the banned outfit have been arrested from a particular place. He, however, said no illegal firearm was seized from any of the seven arrested Maoists.
“The arrested central committee members were primarily involved in planning and organising major operations like jailbreaks, attacks on VVIPs and vital government installations,” Dwivedi said.
The IG (operations), who is also in-charge of the anti-Naxalite operations in the state, said that the arrested leaders were involved in chalking out strategy of major Naxalite operations in Maoist-affected states. “The military wing of the banned organisation is assigned to execute plans finalised by these leaders,” he added.
He said though the exact motive of the congregation was not immediately known to the security agencies, it is believed that they had gathered to discuss the matter related to the 9th congress of the CPI (Maoist).
