Assam: 70-year-old maoist leader arrested from Cachar

Tinsukia: In what can be described as a major blow to left-wing extremism, a joint operation by the crime branch of Assam police and Silchar police led to the arrest of a central committee member-cum-ideologue and strategist of CPI (Maoist) from a tea garden in Assam’s Silchar.

The accused has been identified as Arun Kr Bhattacharjee alias Jyotish alias Kabir alias Kanak alias Kanchan da, who hails from Howrah in West Bengal and carried a Rs 3 crore reward on his head. He has more than 200 cases against him at various police stations in India and is believed to have played a vital role in the Singur incident.

The development comes at a time when CPI (Maoist) has been making attempts to spread the roots of their organization in Assam and other northeastern states, according to intelligence sources.

“Acting on a tip off from central agencies about the movement of a veteran Maoist leader, who is member of the Central committee-cum-ideologue and strategist of CPI (Maoist), being present in general area near tri-junction of districts Cachar, Dima Hasao of Assam and Tamenglong district of Manipur, Assam police launched an operation on March 6,” additional DCP (crime branch) Numul Mahatta said.

The search team carried out operations at suspected hideouts in Thaligram, Nagadong, Patimara tea garden situated under Udarband police stations of Cachar district. 

“As one of the teams reached line 16 of Patimara Tea Garden, they noticed an old man was trying to hide. The search team laid a cordon and apprehended the person after a short chase. On questioning, he identified himself to be Kanchan Da, about 70 years old, and recovered Rs 3.6 lakh besides other in discriminating documents from his possession,” Mahatta told EastMojo.

A second team searched a suspected house from where the accused had come out and nabbed one person who turned out to be Akash Urang alais Rahul alias Kajal, the Assam state organising committee member of CPI (M), and also a close associate of Kanchan da.

The duo led the police to the recovery of a laptop kept hidden near a roadside jungle at kumbha, Mahatta said. 

Mahatta said the CPI(M) has seen a heavy flow of funds from its Eastern Regional Bureau to further the activities in Assam, and Kancha da was assigned the task of taking command over the Assam and the rest of the Northeastern region.

“His interrogation is likely to spill the beans more about the Maoist strategies as well as their game plan in Assam and NE states,” a senior police official said.

The arrested person was an ex-MCC Special Committee Member till 2004 and after that Central Committee Member of CPI (Maoist) till date.

The CPI (Maoist) is an organization proscribed as per first schedule of UA (P) Act, 1967. 

According to Assam police, the motive of the organization in Assam and NE states include to create a red corridor to wage war in a coordinated way with other organizations with similar ideology, to set up core committee in Assam to facilitate the command and control of the organization, to arrange party congress in Assam for analysing the activities and further plan of action to accelerate the Maoist activities with the assistance of other regional committees of India, to arrange weapons for terror financing by way of extortion to intensify the illegal activities, to increase the membership and impart training to the comrades for arms struggle, to set up camps at various locations to coordinate with other similar organization for unified action against the security forces as a part of larger conspiracy to commit terrorist strikes as being done in other parts among others.

Assam police has registered a case under section 120/120B/121/121A/122/384 /302 of IPC, read with Section 16/17/18/18B/19/20 UA(P) Act and will produce them before court.

In 2013, Anukul Chandra Naskar, Central Committee member of CPI Maoist was also arrested from Cachar in Assam.

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