The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Monday interrogated arrested PLFI supremo Dinesh Gope at Birsa Munda Central Jail. The ED interrogated Gope in connection with funds and links with different extremist group.
The NIA had arrested Gope on May 21. Gope during NIA interrogation had given many clues regarding the money received as levy and support he got in laundering of the money. The NIA got clues suggesting that Gope invested extorted money in shell companies besides purchasing land. The probe agency also got information regarding the role of his both wives in money management.
PLFI (People Liberation Front of India) is an extremist organization in Jharkhand and it is a splinter group of the Communist Party of India (Maoist). In May, National Investigation Agency (NIA) arrested Dinesh Gope, a self-styled supremo of the People’s Liberation Front of India (PLFI), a proscribed Naxal outfit of Jharkhand. The accused was involved in over 102 criminal cases and carried a reward of Rs 30 lakh.
A case was registered against Gope by the NIA in a case related to the seizure of Rs 25.38 lakh demonetised notes from the PLFI operatives in 2016. An absconder for almost two decades, he was arrested in New Delhi.
According to the NIA investigations, criminal cases are registered against the accused in Jharkhand, Bihar and Odisha. Most of them relate to murders, abductions, threats, extortion, and raising funds for the PLFI, a militant Maoist outfit formed in 2007. It is a splinter group of the Communist Party of India (Maoist).
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.
Gope also managed to escape and had been shifting base since then to evade arrest. He had also been making efforts to re-establish the PLFI’s stronghold in Jharkhand.
The accused used to extort money and execute attacks through his PLFI team members to terrorise businessmen, contractors and the public. He, along with his associates, was allegedly involved in depositing the demonetised currency at a petrol pump. The amount was to be later collected in valid currency notes through extortion.
