Taking a swift move after the directions issued by Chief Secretary Sajal Chakraverty, Khunti Police has started taking actions to flush out the People’s liberation Front of India (PlFI) cadres from the worst red-hit district in the State. Posters of all the PlFI cadres identified by the police will be publicised soon in order to get information regarding their whereabouts and finish them accordingly.
“Posters of the PlFI cadres are being printed which will soon be put at all important spots of the district, asking them to surrender or be ready to face heat. People will also be requested to inform the police if they are spotted anywhere near their vicinity,” said Khunti SP Anis Gupta. Their names, of course, will always remain confidential, added Gupta.
Khunti, despite being the smallest district and merely 40 km away from the state headquarters Ranchi, has witnessed maximum number of killings last year. In 2013, as many as 109 people got killed in Khunti alone, taking the total count to 498 in the last five years.
Taking a strong note of the violence statistics during the last few years, the Chief Secretary chalked out a plan to put posters at all important spots in the district and publicise the faces and identities of all the cadres which are very few in numbers in order to finish their terror from the area.
Calling splinter groups of CPI (Maoists), including PlFI, TPC, JPC, JlT etc in the State as a gang of small-time criminals largely involved in the business of extortion in the name of Maoists, the Chief Secretary on May 19 had said that those groups will be de-notified soon after being identified by the State Government.
Khunti SP was asked by the Chief Secretary not to complicate the matter further and take proper steps to finish them or at least drag them out of the area.
“Presently we have the names and identities of about 35-40 PlFI cadres in the police records. These cadres, also having criminal records in the past, have now totally involved themselves in extortion business in the name of Maoists,” said Gupta. They even do not have any ideology and have basically turned into criminal groups in order to create terror in the area, he added.
According to Gupta, preparations are already on in the district and gradually police have started taking hold of them. These PlFI cadres are generally young people, having an average age of 17 years.
“One Rajan Nayak who was wanted for the last 10-12 years was arrested yesterday during search operations,” he said.
According to a senior police official in Ranchi, the concept had earlier been used against the CPI (Maoists) by the police and the department had been provided a large printing machine some 7-8 years back for the purpose of printing posters. “But, it is being done first time against the PlFI cadres,” he said.
“The move will definitely help in publicizing the names of the PlFI cadres among the people restricting their movements enabling the police to track them easily,” said the official.
“There are several cadres who are unknown for the many. So, once they are identified by the common man, it will be easier for the police to reach out to them,” he added.