Loot And Scoot

On the run, Jharkhand’s Maoists are siphoning off what they can. Police sources claim that a string of recent cases have exposed the corruption among high-ranking comrades.

- Amitabh Srivastava

The information came in late but the source was good and the target too big to lose. On August 30, a police informant reported seeing two Telugu speaking men leaving the Garu forest area in Gumla district heading towards Ranchi. The input was passed on to the Ranchi police and a crack team was hurriedly assembled. Technical surveillance and matching descriptions helped the police spot the two men as they headed towards the city railway station.

When the cops stopped them, the two men spoke only in Telugu, feigning not to understand a word in Hindi or English. A search revealed they were carrying Rs 25.15 lakh in new currency notes, and over half a kilo of gold biscuits worth around Rs 12 lakh. More than the amount recovered, it was their identity which made the arrests a breakthrough for the Jharkhand police. One of them was B. Narayan, younger brother of Sudhakar, the man who leads the Maoists in Jharkhand. The other, Satyanarayan Reddy, was a key business associate of the fugitive Maoist. Even more interesting, the duo confessed to have been given the cash by Sudhakar him­self—they were to invest the money in real estate projects in Vijayawada.

The Maoist commander was appa­rently stealing from his party. And it wasn’t the first time. Reddy has con­fessed to investing crores of rupees on Sudhakar’s behalf in real estate proj­ects in and around their native states, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.

The Maoists are fighting with their backs to the wall in the 10 Indian states that they still operate. In recent years, they have suffered unprecedented losses of territory and cadre to the security forces. Last year, 222 Maoists were killed in encounters, the highest loss for the insurgents since 2006. Over 2,000 cadre have surrendered in the past two years. Violent incidents have halved, from 2,204 in 2010 to 1,048 last year.