By IANS
Patna : The Bihar Special Task Force (STF) arrested two Maoist leaders here and recovered a large quantity of explosives, including clamour mines, detonators, and grenades, police officials said Friday.
Inspector General (Operations) S.K. Bhardwaj said STF personnel Thursday night arrested two Maoists — secretary of the north Bihar unit of the outlawed Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) Lalbabu Sahni alias Bhakarji and another rebel Dhananjay – after a tip off from intelligence sources.
The police later raided two houses at Kumrahar in Patna, where the Maoists had been living in a rented house for the past six months, and recovered a huge cache of explosives, Maoist literature and other materials, including CDs, cassettes.
“STF personnel during their raid were surprised to found a room full of explosives and another room full of Maoist propaganda materials,” Bhardwaj said.
Police officials expressed serious concern over the recovery of the explosives from the house.
“Preliminary investigation suggested that the recovered explosives and propaganda materials were meant to be used for some major Maoist operation,” Bhardwaj added.
In September, Maoist leader Tusharkant Bhattacharya was arrested from a rented house at Dujra in the heart of Patna along with another guerrilla. The police also recovered materials used in manufacturing time-bombs, communication equipment, and a large quantity of Maoist literature. Bhatttacharya was wanted by the police of Chattishgarh, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal.
Maoists are active in 12 of the 38 districts of Bihar and have strongholds in rural areas where no one dares to violate the orders of the CPI-Maoist due to fear of retribution.