The Uttar Pradesh Anti-Terrorist Squad on Sunday claimed to have arrested 10 Maoists, including a former area commander of the People’s War Group. The arrests were carried out at three different locations in Noida and Chandauli, it said.
The reported recoveries from the accused include a huge cache of arms and explosives, including an Insas assault rifle, suspected to have been robbed from police .
Inspector General of Police (ATS) Asim Kumar Arun said the arrested were working to attain three objectives — expand their base in the National Capital Region (NCR), commit crimes to fund their movement in their base areas of eastern U.P. and western Bihar, and carry out strikes in Noida and nearby areas, including the NCR.
While the police claimed to have intercepted to corroborate the crime and the expansion theory, the group’s plans to launch an attack were purportedly unearthed only after explosives and detonators were recovered.
The arrested men have been identified as Ranjit Paswan, Krishna Kumar Ram, Pavan Kumar Jha, Sunil Kumar Yadav, Shailendra Kumar, Sachin Kumar, Suraj, Ashish Saraswat, Brij Kishor Tomar and Sunil Ravidas.
“At least three of them have previous proven or alleged Naxal links. Among them Ranjit was an area commander of the People's War Group and was an expert in bomb-making and gun assembling. He was also convicted in a case in 2004 and went underground immediately after his release in 2012,” said Mr. Arun.
The arrested men had taken two houses and one shop in Noida and had even opened a property dealing business as a front to cover up their Maoist activties.
Under surveillance
“They have been here for the past 11 months. Few weeks ago, a citizen found some suspicious activities going on in the Hindon Vihar flat where some of them were living and informed the local police who, in turn, alerted us. We mounted a surveillance and kept a watch on them. We received a tip-off that soon one of their accomplices would come to drop an AK 47 to Noida and initially we decided to wait till then. But later, we realised it would be too much of a risk as six of them had already gathered at the Hindon Vihar flat,” said Mr. Arun.
It was the same flat where the first raid was made. The ATS team reached the apartment around 7 p.m on Saturday, surrounded the building and managed to arrest the six suspects.
Rifle recovered
“We questioned them, and at their instance, carried out the next set of arrests in the early hours of Sunday at another flat in Sadarpur. Ranjit Paswan told us that their leader Sunil Ravidas was hiding in Chandauli district. A team of police officers conducted a raid and arrested Ravidas from there, also on Sunday. From him an Insas rifle was recovered,” said Mr. Arun.
