Jharkhand Police on Friday arrested CPI (Maoist) politburo member Prashant Bose alias Kishan Da along with his wife Sheela Marandi under Kandra police station of Saraikela-Kharsawan district in Jharkhand.
Prashant Bose, aged around 75 years, is a member of the banned CPI Maoist Central Committee, Politburo, Central Military Commission (CMC) and secretary of the Eastern Regional Bureau (ERB) of the outfit.
Jharkhand Police had announced a cash prize of Rs one crore on his head for his catch. He is learnt to have been arrested on the basis of intelligence inputs of the Intelligence Bureau.
“He was arrested around 10 AM when he was on way to Bengal. He was under constant surveillance. They are now being questioned,” top sources in the agency told The Pioneer. Police have recovered documents from his possession. He was in overall in-charge of Bihar, Jharkhand, Bengal and Uttar Pradesh.
Intelligence sources said that Prashant Bose and his wife had secretly visited a hospital at Chandil for the treatment. After treatment, he moved to Bengal in a private SUV when he was
arrested.
Intelligence agencies were constantly mobilizing intelligence inputs about the whereabouts of Prashant Bose. During interrogation, a CPI (Maoist) leader Maharaj Pramanimk agencies got valuable inputs about him which finally yielded
results.
For police and security agencies he remained elusive and always gave security forces a slip. A few years back, security forces had nearly caught him at Bundu when he was returning to Bengal from Parasnath via Bundu. He managed to escape.
He was the mastermind of over 100 Naxal incidents in Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, Chhatisgarh, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra.
A native of Jadavpur district of Bengal his wife is a tribal woman from Tundi locality of Dhanbad. His wife aged about 60 years is currently a member of the Central Committee (CC).
In 2006 she was arrested in Odisha and was released from jail in Rourkela. After leading a normal life for a few years she again joined the Naxal activities.
She is known by different alias like Hema, Shpbadi, Asha, Budhani and Guddi.