Bokaro, Aug. 26: Veteran Maoist Mithilesh Mahto, who goes by aliases like Duryodhan Mahto and Bara Babu, may have met his match in new Bokaro SP Y.S. Ramesh.
SP Ramesh, who asked state DGP D.K. Pandey's permission to increase the reward on Mithilesh's head from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 15 lakh last week, received a go-ahead yesterday.
Without wasting time, Ramesh has printed hundreds of posters today seeking information on Mithlesh, the new reward money displayed prominently. These are now being pasted in Jhumra, Parasnath hills, Dumri, Bokaro and Upar Ghat zones from Wednesday.
Mithilesh, who led his team to torch 24 coal dumpers of BJP MP Ravindra Pandey in July last week, is also strengthening Maoist rank and file in Jhumra, Nawadih in Bokaro; Parasnath, Madhuban hills and Peertand, all Giridih; Vishnugarh in Hazaribagh; and Ramgarh and Chatra.
"DGP D.K. Pandey agreed to enhance the reward from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 15 lakh, which hopefully makes our job easier," Ramesh told The Telegraph.
Now in his late 40s, Mithilesh is the special area commander in what Maoists call the Jilanga zone, comprising pockets of Bokaro, Giridih, Ramgarh, Chatra and Hazaribagh districts. Bokaro is its nerve centre.
He's seen on a par with Kundan Pahan in Maoist circles.
But, this is his second coming. In the early 2000s, Mithilesh was in the news for instigating violence as much as for his love affair with rebel Priya Hembrom alias Puja.
The man who had played the key role in the loot of arms from the RPF at Chandrapura station in 2003, besides several attacks on security forces, was besotted by Priya.
It was then that Tadasha Mishra, now an IG, asked Priya to join the mainstream, making her a police informer. As Priya helped the police recover a big part of the RPF loot, it seemed Mithlesh's days as a rebel were numbered.
True enough, Mithilesh claimed to surrender in 2005, which the police said was an arrest. Priya was inducted in the police force, but was killed by rebels in 2007 in Gomia for betraying them.
When Mithilesh was released in 2014, rebels in the region had lost much of their steam, which explained his urgency to regroup and strike. Police sources said with Priya gone, there was little to stop him.
SP Ramesh is known to be in talks with North Chotanagpur IG Tadasha Mishra, ADG S.N. Pradhan, CRPF DIG B.K. Toppo, commandant of CRPF 26th battalion Sanjay Kumar on how to nab him.
