Bhagalpur, April 15: A team of Special Task Force (STF) and Banka police have foiled a plan of Naxalites to break into Banka district jail and free their comrades. CPI (Maoist) zonal commander Baidyanath Tiwary, also known as Binod Tiwary, Bhagwanda and Samirda, who was supposed to lead the rebels in their enterprise, has also been arrested.

Sources said with Tiwary’s arrest, the police would be able to solve the murder case of former Munger superintendent of police K.C. Surendra Babu.

The 1997-batch IPS officer was killed, along with six other police personnel, when the rebels detonated a landmine under his patrol vehicle on January 5, 2005.

Police sources said Tiwary had confessed to his involvement in Babu’s murder. In February this year, Vivishan Pandit, another accused in the murder case, was also arrested.

A.K. Chandra, sub-divisional officer, Haveli Kharagpur, who has been appointed the investigating officer in the former Munger SP’s murder case told The Telegraph over telephone: “Samirda’s name has been mentioned in the fresh chargesheets. We will request to take him into remand for interrogations.”

The Jharkhand government had announced an award of Rs 1 lakh on Tiwary.

“An active member of the CPI (Maoist) Jamui-Bhagalpur committee, Samirda was camping at Samukhiya for the past few days. Other members of the banned outfit were supposed to join him. They had planned a special mission to break into Banka district jail and liberate their comrades,” said Shyam Kumar, superintendent of police, Banka. More than 24 Maoists, including Jai Paswan alias Jaida, are lodged in the district jail.