Hazaribagh, March 22: Two Maoist top guns who had masterminded the killing of Bihar policeman Lucas Tete and an attack on Babulal Marandi’s motorcade besides several other strikes were today nabbed from Belatand in Giridih during a joint operation of police and CRPF.
Shahdeo Manjhi, a member of the Bihar-Jharkhand-north Chhattisgarh special area committee of CPI(Maoist) who was in charge of the Jamui-Bhagalpur zone, and Nemchand Mahto, a member of the eastern Bihar and north Jharkhand zonal committee, admitted that Tete was killed on their instruction.
Tete, a Bihar Military Police ASI from Simdega, was found dead on September 3, 2010, after he was taken hostage in Lakhisarai, Bihar.
Tipped of about Maoist presence in Belatand, Giridih police formed a team led by SP Amol Venukant Homkar and raided the area under Tisri station around 4 this morning.
Sources said the joint team including DSP Kailash Karmali, officers in charge of Bagoder and Nimiyaghat Satish Kumar and Prabhat Ranjan Barwar, and jawans of CRPF’s 22nd Battalion led by deputy commandant M.K. Singh spotted the arrested duo conversing with two others.
The policemen asked all four to surrender, but they tried to flee. “Two of the four managed to escape. We seized a rifle from Shahdeo and a 9mm pistol and 10 live cartridges from Nemchand,” Homkar said.
The SP added that on being grilled on the spot, the duo informed them about a cache of arms and ammunition kept hidden at Ghutia Dhongachatti, a forest area along the district border with Jamui (Bihar).
Homkar said, “Later, a search team was sent to the spot, where they recovered 276 detonators, 100 gelatine sticks, three can bombs and a pistol, apart from wires, bags and 88 rounds of live cartridges.”
Sources said the 35-year-old Shahdeo — also a member of the Maoist special military committee — was a resident of Vishnugarh in Hazaribagh.
Nemchand (31) hailed from Bengabad, Giridih.
Homkar said Shahdeo was also known as Pervezda, Amleshda and Anujda among members of the CPI(Maoist) while Nemchand was called Saketji, Sanjeev and Doctor.
Both were wanted in nearly 40 cases of violence, from massacres to loot of arms, in Odisha, Bihar and Jharkhand.
Sources said the duo admitted to planning the attack on Marandi in 2003 in which two constables were killed in Giridih, the theft of 5,000 rifles in Kandhamal, Odisha (2008) and massacres at Bhelwaghati (2005) and Chilkhari (2007).
They also conceded they were involved in masterminding the killing of then Munger (Bihar) SP K.C. Surendra Babu in 2005 and attack on Marandi’s brother Nunulal in 2010.
Interstate meet
A high-level meeting of police officers of Jharkhand and Bengal at Masanjore in Dumka chalked out strategies to step up co-ordination between the state forces to check Naxalite activities in border areas.
The Bengal team was led by IG (Burdwan) Gangeswar Singh, who presided over the meeting that was attended by IG (Dumka) Arun Oraon and district SPs, among others.
