The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Sunday arrested the absconding self-styled supremo of the People’s Liberation Front of India (PLFI), a proscribed Naxal outfit of Jharkhand. The accused Dinesh Gope was nabbed here and had 102 criminal cases against him. He was absconding for almost two decades and carried a total reward of Rs 30 lakh.

Gope with two aliases —Kuldeep Yadav and Badku of Khunti district in Jharkhand was earlier chargesheeted by the NIA in a case relating to the recovery of demonetized currency of Rs 25.38 lakh from the operatives of PLFI.

He was absconding in the said case, one of the two cases being investigated by the NIA’s Ranchi Branch against the PLFI.

According to NIA investigations, more than 102 criminal cases are registered against Gope in Jharkhand, Bihar and Odisha. Most of these cases relate to murders, abductions, threats, extortion, and raising funds for the PLFI, a terrorist-Maoist outfit formed in 2007 in Jharkhand and also a splinter group of the banned Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist).

The NIA had also declared a reward of Rs 5 lakh for leads on Gope, in addition to the reward of Rs 25 lakh announced by the Jharkhand government.

On February 3, 2022, an encounter had taken place between a Gope-led PLFI squad and security personnel in the forest area under Gudri police station of West Singhbhum district of Jharkhand. Several rounds were fired in the encounter before the rebels sneaked into the forest and Gope managed to escape. He had been absconding since then, and had been taking shelter at different places while making all efforts to re-establish the PLFI’s stronghold in Jharkhand, the NIA said in a statement.

“Gope used to extort money and execute attacks through his PLFI team members to terrorize businessmen, contractors and the public at large, NIA investigations have shown. The accused, along with his associates, was involved in depositing the demonetized currency in a bank account at a Petrol Pump, to be later collected through levy/extortion. The illegal money was then invested through banking channels and dubious Shell Companies in the name of close associates and family members of the accused Dinesh Gope,” the agency said.

The case was initially registered on November 10, 2016 at police station Bero, Ranchi, and re-registered by NIA on January 19, 2018.