Guwahati, March 7: Assam Police have, in a major catch, apprehended a veteran member of the Central committee cum ideologue and strategist of CPI-Maoist from a tea garden in southern Assam’s Cachar district.
The arrested person, known as ‘Kanchan Da’, was tasked to set up the state-level Maoist team, supervise it and set up a red corridor from a neighbouring country to areas that have Naxal influence in India.
CPI (Maoist) is an organisation proscribed as per the first schedule of the UA (P) Act, 1967.
Acting on a tip off from central agencies, a team led by additional DCP, crime branch Guwahati, Numal Mahatta, along with inspectors (crime branch), Sanjay Borgohain and Jyotirmoy Dutta accompanied by Assam Police commandos conducted a massive search operation in suspected hideouts and arrested the veteran central committee member from Patimara tea garden in the Thaligram area of Nagadong circle under Udarbond police station on Sunday evening.
The search team was split into five groups to catch Kanchan Da from a general area near the tri-junction of districts Cachar, Dima Hasao of Assam and Tamenglong district of Manipur, where he had been hiding along with his associates.
“When the team entered Line number 16 of the tea garden they saw an old man trying to hide and get away…When he was chased and caught he confessed to being Kanchan Da, a central committee member of CPI Maoist. He is also known as Arun Kumar Bhattacharjee alias Jyotish alias Kabir alias Kanak alias Kanchanda, son of late Gopal Krishna Bhattacharjee, originally from Howrah in West Bengal,” Guwahati city police commissioner Harmeet Singh informed reporters here on Monday.
“This is a big catch for the security forces fighting for national security as there as 200 cases registered against Kancha Da, who is a strong ideologue of the central committee of CPI (Maoist) and someone who was tasked to spread this malaise in the Northeast, starting from Assam,” Singh said.
Till date, only lower level functionaries of the banned organisation have been arrested in the Northeast.
“He has been with the Maoist organisation for a long time and sent here to set up the state-level team, supervise it and set up a red corridor from a neighbouring country to the areas that still have some Naxal influence in India which includes Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Telangana, Andhra, Odisha,” the city police commissioner said.
“We have also arrested a close associate of his, identified as Akash Urang alias Rahul alias Kajal, who is a member of the Assam state organising committee of the CPI (Maoist),” he said.
Both the apprehended activists of CPI Maoist were thoroughly interrogated on the spot. They confessed that they had concealed one laptop containing some valuable information at a place near Kumbha.
Accordingly the team rushed towards Kumbha on being led by the apprehended Maoists and recovered the laptop from a road side jungle, on being shown by them, and seized it accordingly as per law.
“The arrested central committee member of CPI Maoist was found to be in possession of a cash amount of Rs 3, 60,000, being the proceeds of terrorism and other incriminating articles,” a statement said.
A case under Sections 120/120B/121/121A/122/384 /302 of IPC, read with Sections 16/17/18/18B/19/20 of UA(P) Act has been taken up against the apprehended accused persons.