A new power equation has cropped up in insurgency hit areas of Chhattisgarh where some alleged ‘brokers’ after coming into contact with Naxals are providing finance and logistics to them.
They (brokers) are prospering financially while issuing threats in the name of Naxals while persons associated with them at lower levels are creating an environment of fear, which is encouraging criminal activities in insurgency affected areas, a top police officer claimed here on Friday.
Additional Director General of Police (ADGP) (Intelligence) Mukesh Gupta said that two key aides of the urban Naxal network have been arrested. The arrests had been made in a series of rounding up of Naxal couriers. The arrested accused have been identified as Neeraj Chopra and Deepak Chopra, he said
“So far seven arrests have been made and we have found that they were involved in eight criminal cases that include six attempt to murder and two murder cases. Phool Singh Nareti, Sukhnath Nag and Santosh Dhurva who were arrested earlier were chiefly involved in these cases,” the ADGP said.
The police officer further informed that Neeraj Chopra was a key person of Maoist urban network who was associated with Naxals for a long time. “We have information that he had transferred about Rs 15 lakh, Rs 25 lakh, Rs 20 lakh and Rs 10 lakh to Naxals out of which he has confessed of transacting Rs 15 lakh and Rs 20 lakh,” Gupta claimed.
He said that Chopra had provided the money to Naxals for purchasing arms and was associated with Naxal leader Prabhakar. “Chopra had influence over awarding of contracts related to Forest, PWD or other departments in Kanker region,” the ADGP said. Gupta revealed that Chopra had arranged a meeting of a Bus Service Operator Karnail Singh with Prabhakar. They had also supplied electronic goods such as Motorola wireless sets, mobiles, laptops, memory chip etc to Naxals in huge quantity, ADGP informed.
Deepak Chopra has also confessed to supplying huge cash amount to Naxals bases in Jharkhand. Further, by showing threat of Naxals, they had extorted Rs 1.5 crore from a private contractor associated with a private power company. He was also a major link for transferring of cash and arms, the ADGP said.