Patna: At least 20 senior Maoist leaders are contemplating to enter Bihar following the operation launched by the Jharkhand police in the wake of killing of six personnel of the Jharkhand Jaguar Force (JJF) in a landmine explosion in Garhwa district in June.

The state police headquarters, which is closely monitoring the development in Jharkhand, has put the police in the bordering districts of Bihar on high alert. Operations have been launched on the suspected Maoist hideouts on the basis of specific information gathered by intelligence agencies.

Intelligence inputs suggested that around 20 senior Maoist leaders such as Sandeep Yadav, Pradumna Sharma, Gautam Paswan, Sanjit Bhuiyan and Abhijeet were planning to shift their base from Jharkhand to Bihar. Sandeep, the self-proclaimed chief of Bihar-Jharkhand central zone of the CPI(Maoist), has influence in Gaya, Jamui, Nawada, Aurangabad and Banka districts of Bihar.

A senior IPS officer associated with the anti-Maoist operations said: "These Maoist leaders are among 20 top rebels from Bihar who are camping in Budha Pahar in Jharkhand since October last year. They have mainly been engaged in training newly inducted cadres, planning attacks on security forces and running extortion network."

The officer said the rebel leaders were looking for safer places in Bihar following heightened anti-Maoist operations launched in the northeastern region of Jharkhand. "But we are cautious and will not allow them to stay here and continue their operations against the security forces," he told The Telegraph over phone.

The officer further said Bihar had always been a favourite destination for the senior Maoist leaders. To drive home his point, he said that Divendu Kumar Singh alias Subodh Ji, the self-styled Bihar-Jharkhand special area committee member, was arrested from Ram Lakhan Path (Kankerbagh) in Patna when he was secretly undergoing treatment after being injured in an encounter with the security forces in Jharkhand on May 26 this year.

Sources said over a dozen Maoist commanders had been arrested in the past two months. Ram Pravesh Mahto, a Maoist leader, was arrested from Madanpur in Aurangabad district on July 4 this year. Similarly, Vinay Ram, stated to be right-hand man of the zonal commander Lal Babu Sahni was nabbed from Muzaffarpur on June 22.

Banka superintendent of police Chandan Kushwaha said close surveillance was being maintained in areas close to the Jharkhand border to foil any attempt by Maoists to enter the district's limits. Similar views were echoed by the SPs of Aurangabad and Jamui districts.

Meanwhile, Aurangabad superintendent of police Satya Prakash has written to the ministry of home affairs to help the police ascertain the ordnance factory, which had allotted an AK-47 assault rifle, which was recovered from a Maoist leader's house last month. "We have also informed the SPs and police stations in both Bihar and Jharkhand about the seizure of the weapon," he added.