A top-ranking member of the Bihar-Jharkhand-North Chhatisgarh Special Area Committee of the CPI-Maoist , Vishnudeo Yadav alias Chashma Yadav alias Satender Yadav alias Chhota Vikas on Tuesday surrendered before Palamu range DIG Saket Kumar Singh. SP of latehar Anoop Birtharey and other senior police officials were also present.
Yadav is considered second -in-command after the top Maoist Arvind Ji. His numerous aliases speak for his stature in the CPI-Maoist as in the year 2001 Yadav was slapped with the then dreaded Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA). Confirming this Saket K Singh said it took little over four months for police to persuade him to return to the mainstream.
Yadav had joined extremism in 1996. Quoting Yadav, Saket said his joining of extremism was not for any stereo-typed issue of land dispute but it was something emotional as Saket said Yadav was ‘pained’ to see the exploitation of the underprivileged all around and he was brimming then with passion to mitigate their sufferings.
On being asked as to what prompted Yadav to return to law, Saket again said, "Yadav told me that his being in the extremism did not give him any satisfaction either. Here too the story was same. The powerful here were forcing the weak to bend and mend. It was all the more a big frustration here’. Yadav has clarified he would not jump into any poll fray."
Yadav further told the DIG it was Maoists own doing that saw so many divisions and splinter groups all out to grab money by all means.
DIG explained that since Yadav was in the Maoists special area committee he surrendered with empty hand. Yadav has 6 cases each in latehar and Palamu districts. Police are rummaging the files for his numerous cases in lohardaga district.