Prashant Majhi at a police station in Gajapati on Friday. Telegraph picture

Bhubaneswar, May 4: The state’s top Maoist leader, Sabyasachi Panda, today suffered a major blow when one of his most trusted bodyguards surrendered before police in Gajapati district.

Prashant Majhi alias Sushant, 20, who laid down arms before Gajapati top cop Sarthak Sarangi, used to shadow the rebel chief round the clock, even though Panda had three other bodyguards as well. He had come to rely heavily on Prashant after two other cadres responsible for his personal security were arrested and another surrendered in February.

Prashant, who hails from R. Udaygiri in Gajapati, told the police that Panda himself was planning to give up arms as he was not getting along well with Maoist leaders from Chhattisgarh and was beginning to realise that his life was in danger.

Panda, the state organising secretary of the CPI(Maoist), became the prime target of security forces after he kidnapped two Italian nationals on March 14 from Daringabadi in Kandhamal district. They have been hot on his trail ever since the hostage crisis came to an end on April 12 with the release of Italian tour operator Paolo Bosusco.

Senior officers here said that while the hunt for Panda intensified with security forces making deep forays into the forests of Ganjam and Kandhamal districts, combing operations had also been stepped up in almost all the southern Odisha districts that are known for Maoist activity.

“The target for the security forces in southern Odisha is top-ranking rebel leaders such as Ramakrishna and Modem Balakrishna, both central committee members of the CPI(Maoist). They operate on both sides of the border. Ramakrishna, who is also secretary of the Andhra-Odisha Border Special Zonal Committee of the Maoists, has a reward of Rs 12 lakh on his head declared by the Andhra Pradesh government,” said a senior officer.

Describing Prashant as a prized catch, Sarangi said the police hoped to garner useful information about Panda and the Maoist set up in Odisha following his interrogation. He said the young rebel, who had joined the Maoist organisation in 2005 while he was still a high school student, could handle sophisticated weapons including AK-47 and carbines.

Prashant had attended several arms training camps organised by the Maoists, including one in 2008 before the killing of Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Laxmananand Saraswati. Rebel commander Dunna Keshav Rao alias Azad, one of the accused in the case, had given tips to the cadres at the camp. Another camp, which was held after Saraswati’s murder, saw the participation of 50 people from Raikia in Kandhamal district.

Prashant, who joined the Ghumsar division of the Maoists in 2007 before being picked up by Panda as his bodyguard, told the police that he had decided to give up arms as he had been disillusioned by the ideological deviation in the rebel leadership, continued exploitation of women cadres and the highhandedness of the Chhattisgarh leaders who now dominate the movement.

The surrender of Prashant, who also organised logistics for the operations carried out by Panda, came at a time when he was about to be made an area commander. “Given Panda’s faith in him, he would have gone far in the Maoist organisation but he decided to call it quits,” said a source.

The surrender in Gajapati today coincided with the murder of a contractor by suspected Maoists at MV-55 village in Malkangiri district. The body of the contractor, identified as Subal, was recovered in the morning from a canal near the village.

In another development, Jajpur police last night arrested Siny Soy, a self-styled Maoist commander, who was involved in the attack on Daitari police station and the abduction of assistant sub-inspector Umesh Marandi in 2010. The rebel, a woman in her early 50s, was nabbed during a combing operation by the security forces in Kaliapani in Jajpur.