Uma Shankar Behera, an advocates’ clerk and document writer in his fifties, who was involved in extortion in the name of Maoists was arrested by personnel of Baidyanathpur police station of Berhampur in Odisha on Sunday.
Behera is a resident of Mohana in Gajapati district and used to work in as a document writer or advocates’ clerk on the Mohana court premises. Investigation has hinted that this man was using his knowledge about Maoist organization and activities to extort money from gullible victims through threatening letters and phone calls. Berhampur at one time was a major transit point of Maoists and it is alleged that Maoists used to extort money from persons of the city in tacit manner. Behera had tried to use this information for his nefarious act. Usually fake naxalites regularly arrested in south Odisha are youths in search of easy money. But Behera was a knowledgeable mature man to have opted for this misdeed.
Investigation is on to find out number of extortions committed by this fake naxalite. Recently he got trapped while he was trying to extort two lakh rupees from a retired bank official of Berhampur. “Modus operandi of Behera was to send threatening letter to various persons and trap only those who fall swallow his bait due to fear psychosis related to Maoists”, said Sub-Divisional Police Officer (SDPO) of Berhampur Santanu Kumar Dash.
According to the SDPO, apart from having knowledge about Maoists, Behera was also technically sound as he had tried to devise a method through which his threat calls to the victim could not be easily traced. Although he was from Mohana, he had posted all the seized threatening letters from Berhampur. The mobile phone, SIM card used to make threatening calls and a fake stamp of CPI (Maoist) organization was seized from his possession. He was making threats in the name of Rayagada committee of CPI (Maoist) organization. Language and format of his threatening letters was so similar to real letters of Maoists that initially police had resorted to serious investigation as there were chances that it may be real naxalite threat.
The retired bank official had also thought threatening letters and phone calls reaching him since Apr 25 to be from Maoists and had not approached police. Receiving information about this extortion bid from some other sources, police personnel had reached the victim and persuaded him to help police in tracking down the miscreant.
The SDPO urged citizens of the city to reach police if they receive any threats in the name of Maoists to check miscreants like Behera or real naxalites.
