Patna, June 2: A teacher of a government school in Rohtas district has been arrested on the charge of supplying explosive material and other improvised devices to Maoists for blowing up school buildings in the region.

Rohtas superintendent of police (SP) Manu Maharaj said a police team conducted raids on different hideouts of the Maoists acting on a tip-off last evening and arrested the teacher, Ajit Mishra, for supplying explosives to the rebels to blow up the middle school at Parchha under Chutia police station on Monday.

The SP said the police were keeping a close watch on the activities of Mishra for the past several months. During investigation it came to light that Mishra, posted at the Parchha government middle school, had supplied the explosive material used for blowing up the school buildings.

Over 50 heavily armed Maoists had descended on Parchha village under Chutia police station on Tuesday morning and blew up the building of the government-run middle school triggering a dynamite blast. Three of the seven rooms of the institution were damaged in the incident.

“The police have gathered enough evidence to establish Mishra’s links with the banned outfit operating in Rohtas district,” the SP said, adding that the teacher had also provided electronic devices, fuse wires and other material for blowing up the school building.

The officials of intelligence agencies interrogated Mishra, whose activities were under the surveillance of the police for six months.

Mishra, a resident of Tiura village under Chutia police station, was today produced before the chief judicial magistrate at Sasaram, who forwarded him to judicial custody for two weeks.

Body found

The Chutia police recovered the bullet-riddled body of Shatrughna Mehta, an agriculturist, from a forest today. Mehta, along with his relative Shashi Kumar Mehta, was kidnapped by Maoists from Pararia village on Wednesday.

The police said Shatrughna was shot dead by suspected Maoists. Shashi was released.

The Maoists killed Shatrughna, an agriculturist, suspecting him to be a police informer. The rebels had earlier thrashed him at a kangaroo court and released him with a warning.

On Tuesday, a group of armed guerrillas of the rebel outfit swooped down on the village and picked up the two farmers. “Today one of the captives’ body was recovered from the forest,” a police officer posted at Chutia police station, considered to be the worst-Naxalite-affected police station of Rohtas district, said.