A former Naxalite commander and his associate were arrested for trying to extort Rs 10 lakh from a woman Sarpanch in Chhattisgarh's Balrampur district, police said on Wednesday.
Praveen Khess alias Nepali, a former Rs zonal commander', was held from his village Mainpat in neighbouring Surguja district while his aide Sanjay Lohar was arrested from Rajpur police station area of Balrampur, the police said.
Sangeeta Pakira, the Sarpanch of Khjuriadiah village panchayat, complained that a group of unidentified people visited her house on February 2 night and sought Rs 10 lakh, Balrampur Superintendent of Police Ramkrishna Sahu said.
They claimed to have links with Maoists and threatened dire consequences if she informed the police.
During investigation, four persons allegedly linked to Nepali were nabbed.
On Tuesday, Nepali and Lohar, who is from Jharkhand, were arrested and pamphlets of the Maoist Koyal Sankh Zonal Committee which is active on the Jharkhand-Chhattisgarh border were seized from them, the officer said.
The accused were booked under IPC (punishment for extortion), the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act, 2005 and Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, Sahu said.
Nepali was earlier arrested when he was an active Maoist. After his release from jail in 2009, he was leading normal life. In the last few months, however, he has been roaming in Balrampur district for unknown reasons, said a police official.
"We are probing if he still has links with Maoists and whether the extortion money was meant for the Naxalites," the official said.