The Jharkhand Police on Sunday officially disclosed about the arrest of top Maoist leader Prashant Bose along with his wife Sheela Marandi and three associates stating that Bose was on the way to Saranda forest to attend a coordination committee meeting of CPI (Maoist) when he was arrested.
Jharkhand DGP Neeraj Sinha who addressed a press conference said “in the last two decades this is the biggest damage CPI (Maoist) has suffered after its top-ranking leader was arrested by Jharkhand Police on November 12.”
He said other arrested Naxals have been identified as Virendra Hansda, Raju Tudu, Krishna Bahanda and Gurucharan Bodra. Police recovered four mobile phones, two SSD, one pen drive and Rs 1.51 lakh cash from the possession of Prashant Bose and his wife. These storage devices contain a lot of information and planning of Naxals.
He said Jharkhand Police and intelligence agencies got information that a large number of Maoist leaders are assembling in Kolkahn to attend the coordination committee meeting and Prashant Bose too has left the meeting.
DGP said that on the basis of that information police carried intensive checking operations along with CRPF in Dhanbad, Bokaro, Ranchi, Jamshedpur, Saraikela-Kharsawan and parts of Kolhan. He said that during one such checking police stopped an SUV at the Giddibera toll plaza under the Kandra police station area of Saraikela-Kharsawan and he was found alo0n along with his wife and associates.
Prashant Bose was last arrested in 1974 and kept at Hazaribagh jail. After his release in 1978, he again joined the Naxal movement. He is a member of the Polite Bureau of CPI (Maoist), Central Committee, Central Military Commission and the secretary of the Eastern Regional Bureau of CPI (Maoist).