Three arrested Maoists in Rourkela. The police have recovered Rs 76 lakh, a pistol and mobile phones from the rebels. Picture by Uttam Kumar Pal

Bhubaneswar, Aug. 12: The Orissa government’s stepped up offensive against the Maoists appears to be yielding results.

Close on the heels of the surrender of a top Maoist in Rayagada on Wednesday, another senior rebel commander, along with two of his colleagues, was arrested last night in the steel city of Rourkela.

The trio were trying to board a bus to Bhubaneswar near Hanuman Vatika in the city when the police team intercepted them.

Police recovered Rs 76 lakh in cash and a gun from the rebels who operated in Saranda on the Sundergarh-Jharkhand border. They are being interrogated at an undisclosed destination.

Rourkela police chief Himanshu Lal said the arrested rebel commander, Prashant alias Shiva Munda alias Lambu, was the second top man in the Maoist hierarchy controlling Saranda where a joint combing operation by Orissa and Jharkhand police is under way. The two women Maoists arrested along with Prashant have been identified as Kiran and Badera.

This is the first instance of recovery of such a large amount of cash from Maoists in a single operation in Orissa. “We are trying to find out whether the rebels were just trying to escape stepped up combing in the Saranda forests, one of their major bases on the Orissa-Jharkhand border, or had some other plans. We are not taking any chances with preparations for Independence Day celebrations on in full swing across the state,” said a senior police officer.

Constituting the border between Orissa and Jharkhand on the Sundergarh side, Saranda forests have been the focus of Maoist operations for the past few years with rebels from both states organising training camps in the area. Maoists have also killed nearly two dozen police and paramilitary jawans in ambushes in these forests, which remain hard to penetrate for the security forces. In February this year, Saranda forests were in news following the arrest of three rebel leaders from Assam who were organising a training camp there for local cadres. The arrested rebels also had links with the Ulfa, the dreaded militant outfit of Assam.

Ever since, there has been growing speculation about the link between Ulfa and the Maoists operating in Orissa and Jharkhand. Senior police officials believe that the Maoist leadership of these states has been hiring weapon experts from Ulfa on a regular basis for training local cadres.