Bhubaneswar, May 11: Security forces appear close to arresting Azad alias Duna Keshav Rao, one of Orissa’s most wanted Maoist leaders.

Highly placed sources said special operations group (SOG), a crack force raised by the state government to boost its anti-Maoist operations, was closing in on the rebel who had managed to give the police the slip in Bhubaneswar on Monday.

“We will nab him sooner or later,” said additional director general of police (operations), Sanjeev Marik while maintaining a cryptic silence about the SOG strategy against the rebel who is a key member of the CPI (Maoist) state organising committee and an accused in the murder of VHP leader Swami Laxmananand Saraswati.

Significantly, while government sources still cling to their version that Azad managed to escape from the Ekamra slum in the capital during a police operation on Sunday, Orissa’s top Maoist leader, Savyasachi Panda, alleged that his colleague was already in the custody of security forces.

Panda, state secretary of CPI (Maoist), told a private TV channel today that apart from Azad the security forces had also captured three other radicals. He threatened to organise a statewide bandh if the alleged detainees were not produced in the court immediately.

Official sources, however, only confirmed the arrest of Runita Badmajhi alias Pramila, a woman with alleged Maoist links from during Sunday’s raid at the Ekamra slum. They said Runita, considered close to Azad, was carrying about a kilogram of ganja.

The escape of Azad was apparently facilitated by the lack of coordination between the local police and the special operations group. Sources said had the SOG taken the police into confidence over the presence of Azad in the area the Maoist would have been caught. In fact there is still a lot of confusion over Runita’s relationship with Azad with some saying that she is the wife of the fugitive rebel.

Sources said Azad had come to Bhubaneswar for the treatment of Runita who had developed health problems during her stay in the jungles.

“As for the ganja seized from the woman, so many Maoists carry the stuff these days as it can be readily exchanged for money,” said an official.

The arrest of Runita and the fact that Azad was present with her at the time of the raid proves yet again that top ranking Maoists keep paying frequent visits to the capital. In fact, Savyasachi Panda, whose wife Subhashree alias Milli, was arrested from Bhubaneswar in January last year, used to make regular trips to the city till things got too hot for him in the wake of the Maoist attack on Nayagarh town in 2009.

Another senior Naxalite leader, Anna Reddy, who headed the Orissa unit of CPI (ML), Janshakti, was also arrested from the city in 2008. The escape of Azad from the police dragnet is, thus, a wake up call for the authorities.