Suspected Maoist Shravan Manjhi was arrested from Maksudpur village in Gaya district on Thursday night.

The police have recovered a cellphone, a loaded country-made pistol, a live cartridge, Rs 5 lakh and the receipt of levy collection from the possession of Manjhi. The rebel hails from Dema village under Khisersarai police station.

Gaya superintendent of police (SP) Babu Ram told reporters that the police got a tip-off that members of CPI (Maoist) were scheduled to arrive at Maksudpur village to collect the levy from Raja Constructions, a company engaged in road construction in Khisersarai area.

“After getting the information, a police team was constituted, which laid an ambush and caught Shravan. When police searched his bag, the money and the levy receipt were found. During interrogation, Shravan accepted that the amount was collected as levy from Raja Constructions.”

The SP said Shravan was wanted in three cases lodged with Khisersarai and another case lodged with Atri police station area in Gaya.

Gaya-based Raja Constructions has been on the target of Maoists since long. The rebels have attacked the construction camp of the company at least on three occasions earlier. The rebels had torched equipment in July 2009, one JCB machine in June 2011 and had attacked the camp office last month.

Two cases were lodged with Wazirganj and Atri police stations in connection with the 2009 and 2011 attacks respectively.

The firm has constructed around 1,500km of roads in Khisersarai block in Gaya.