In a bizarre incident outlawed CPI (Maoist) rebels torched a passenger bus at Panki in Palamu district in sheer anger of missing food supplies that included jalebis (sweets) being reached to them, said senior police officials. Security forces on Wednesday had seized ‘jalebis’ and food supplies for the CPI (Maoist) being shipped by a bus. On Thursday the Maoists put afire the same bus on Panki Herhunj near Kareematee Ghati on Thursday.
According to DIG police Palamu Saket Kumar Singh, security forces had seized food supplies that were being shipped for the Maoists by a bus on this route on Wednesday. He said among the seizures were jalebis too which were for the Maoists. The seizure of food supplies and jalebis were on a precise tip off to security forces.
The Maoists did not harm any passenger. The bus crew too was left unhurt. None of the crew member of the bus was any roughed up by the Maoists. Driver and apprentice of the bus were asked to leave the bus fast.
They did what they were told by the Maoists said sources. Sources said about 4 dozen passengers travelling by this bus which belonged to one big name Satwan Singh was not harmed by the Maoists. The Maoists asked the passengers to collect their belongings and luggage as fast as they could. The passengers did this in hurry. The DIG denied that this putting afire of the bus was any vindictive or reactive against the seizure of food supplies and jalebis meant for the Maoists by the security forces as DIG contended had it been any retaliatory act the Maoists would have reduced the driver and the apprentice of this bus to pulp but these two were left out by the Maoists.
Singh also said the Maoists were in uniform and armed to the teeth. The contingent of the Maoists had 15 cadres. Police believed the contingent was of Manohar and Azad, the two zonal heads of the Maoists.
Sources said that Manohar’s contingent was at Kekargarh when DC Palamu K Srinivasan and Rajya Sabha MP Dhiraj Prasad Sahu were to go there very recently. A timely input from the IB then forced Srinivasan to change his venue from Kekargarh to Dwarika.
Sources said had the caravan of DC Palamu gone to Kekargarh then Manohar’s contingent of Maoists would not have sit idle then. Kekargarh falls under Panki police station and incident also took place under the same police station.