PATNA: With several Maoist commanders from Bihar engaged in disruptive activities in neighbouring Jharkhand desperately looking for ways to return to Bihar with their cadres and weapons, Bihar police are on high alert in the border districts. The heightened anti-Maoist operations started in northeastern Jharkhand following the June 26 landmine blast that killed six Jharkhand Jaguar Force (JJF) jawans have prompted the rebel leaders to look for safer areas, according to intelligence reports received by Bihar police.
“Nearly a dozen Maoist leaders and commanders from Bihar active in Jharkhand’s Latehar and Garhwa districts, with hundreds of their armed cadres feeling the heat of the anti-Maoist operations going on in and around the Budha Pahar area. They are planning to shift base and enter Bihar,” said a Bihar police officer engaged in monitoring anti-Maoist operations. “But they will not find Bihar a safe haven.”
Intelligence agencies tipped off Bihar police headquarters, the police chiefs in the Maoist-affected districts and the central paramilitary forces deployed there a day after the June 26 incident, said sources. This led police and other security agencies in five Bihar districts on the Jharkhand border — Aurangabad, Gaya, Nawada, Jamui and Banka — being put on high alert.
Prominent among the top Maoist leaders planning to leave Budha Pahar area and enter Bihar are Sandeep Yadav, Jharkhand-Bihar central zone chief of the outlawed CPI (Maoists) who has for long been a terror in Gaya, Auran Pradyumna Sharma of Jehanabad and Gautam Paswan, said sources. Other Maoist commanders from Bihar believed to be trapped in Budha Pahar are Sanjit Bhuiyan and Abhijeet.
“These Maoist leaders and commanders are among nearly 20 top rebels from Bihar who are camping in Jharkhand’s Budha Pahar area since October last. They have been carrying out training of the cadres, planning attacks on security forces and also running extortion networks,” said a senior police official familiar with the situation.
The march of security forces into these hilly, forested parts over the past fortnight has unnerved the Maoists ensconced there. CRPF’s 112 battalion and 40 assault groups of JJF are among nearly 2,000 security personnel engaged in intensive anti-Maoist operations across the Budha Pahar hills for the past two months. With Jharkhand’s Raghubar Das-led BJP government having vowed to eliminate the Left Wing Extremism by the end of this year, the combat against the rebels is currently moving towards a decisive point, said officials.
Bihar cops have arrested about a dozen Maoist commanders in the past two months. Ram Pravesh Mahto, a dreaded CPI(Maoist) leader, was arrested in Aurangabad’s Madanpur on July 4. Vinay Ram, athe right-hand man of CPI(Maoist) zonal commander Lalbabu Sahni, was nabbed in Muzaffarpur district on June 22.