If it is not naxals, then it's criminals who are ruling the roost in a limited area of Latehar. Setting afire vehicles engaged in coal transportation is now not an exception but a rule it appears. 

Torching of vehicles engaged in coal transportation in Latehar's Balumath - Herhunj region appears to be a non stoppable affair. 

On the intervening night of Sunday / Monday two vehicles called in popular lingo hyva were set afire at Kusmahi More under the Balumath police station limits. 

SP Latehar Kumar Gaurav speaking to this correspondent today said "The torching of the two vehicles is the handiwork of the criminals."

Police have identified the criminals.One is Pradeep Ganjhu and the other is Shanker Ganjhu. Pradeep Ganjhu is in the Latehar jail. 

"Shanker Ganjhu has only come out on bail recently and it's he who got this arsoning committed" added SP Latehar. 

There is no naxal angle of this arsoning asserted Gaurav.  No leaflet was thrown at the place of occurrence nor any firing in the air resorted to reiterated SP Latehar. 

One of the two torched vehicles had coal loaded while the other was empty and enroute to the coal siding at Kusmahi, added the SP. 

In the November month 7 vehicles engaged in coal transportation were set ablaze in the Balumath Herhunj range of the district of Latehar. 

This incident of torching two vehicles is the first of December. 

Gaurav said, "Criminals and naxals have hobnobbed together. Setting fire vehicles engaged in coal transportation is the easiest target."

"Incidents have occurred at sharp intervals but it's no resurgence or comeback for the naxals or the criminals or the both" asserted Gaurav. 

Sources said police, coal operators and coal transporters are putting their heads together to try to find out ways and means to stifle the crime whether perpetrated by the criminals or by the naxals. 

The nexus between the naxals and the criminals has disturbed Latehar much. The nexus is not new. It's old but it has gained teeth. 

Sources reminded that time has come to have a police escort convoy at both ends of the vehicles engaged in coal transportation. 

Latehar district has had such a convoy practice when its Patki forest range was extremely notorious for criminals and naxals. 

Patki forest is right there on both sides of NH 75. Here in the day motorists had a dread of either getting looted by the criminals or getting bumped off by the naxals in the nineties and even in the early twenties. 

Here in the Patki forest in the early twenties after the creation of Jharkhand  the then SP Palamu Anil Palta had launched a night long drive to rescue a Christian Nun when an ambulance was attacked with gunshots by the naxals leading to the death of a Christian priest and the Nun had to run for life in the jungles.  

Palta and his troops reached the jungles and began calling on winter night "Sister, Come out. It's Palta here."

Sister identified the call of Palta and came out of the bushes where she had spent hours of her hiding. 

So Balumath and Herhunj are on the way to becoming the Patki forest of the nineties and early twenties too. 

The Latehar police had then preferred to remain at Latehar itself.