Patna, Feb. 12: A special police team today nabbed Shankar alias Baba, presumed to be the head of Tritiya Prastuti Committee (TPC), a Maoist faction in Bihar and Jharkhand.

Investigations have revealed that the middle-aged man had acquired property worth crores of rupees from the extortion money he and the organisation had collected over the years.

Sources said the man owned a multi-storeyed building in Jai Mahavir Colony, funded with extortion money, under the jurisdiction of Bahadurpur police station.

The TPC, which was earlier a part of CPI(Maoist), broke away several years ago and began operating as an independent group. The TPC is mainly active in many districts of Jharkhand.

Patna senior superintendent of police (SSP) Manu Maharaaj said: "In the garb of running a private coaching centre, Ramesh Rai, Amresh Rai and Anil Sharma used to demand extortion money from businessmen on the instructions of Shankar. The police cannot reveal much in connection with the trio, as they are being interrogated. The arrest of Shankar is important as apart from the TPC, he was also heading the Revolutionary Communist Centre, another Maoist breakaway faction operating in a few districts of Bihar, while being very active in Jharkhand. It has come to light also that Shankar was trying to strengthen the TPC base in Bihar."

The men-in-uniform said they received a tip-off that Shankar had been living secretly in Patna under the name of Baba and Panditji.

Investigations found that he had built a house in the Jai Mahavir Colony of Bahadurpur.

The officer said: "A special police team was formed and he was nabbed today (Friday). The police got a tip-off about him after their counterparts in Jehanabad district nabbed three of Shankar's men. Initial investigations have revealed that the man had already started to ask for levy from many people, especially businessmen in Bihar, and had also been trying to recruit men in TPC. It is clear that the man wanted to set up a new TPC base in Bihar." A country-made carbine, four live cartridges and a lot of Maoist literature and pamphlets have been recovered from his possession.

In March 2015, the Patna police had recovered many improvised explosive devices (IEDs) from a flat located in Bahadurpur. Probe that followed revealed that the People's Liberation Front of India (PLFI), a rebel-cum-criminal outfit active in Jharkhand, was planning to set up its base in Jharkhand and the IEDs had been stocked up to give shape to blasts to terrorise the masses.

Former Patna SSP Jitender Rana had said the PLFI, which had been identified as a purely criminal gang by the Jharkhand police, had taken around 15 wayward Nalanda-based youths to Simdega district of Jharkhand, for training. "It is a fact that there are some Maoist breakaway factions, which are trying to set up centres in different parts of Bihar, too. But with these arrests, the police hope to break their morale," said another officer.