Strict vigil was being kept in Maoist-hit Palamau, Latehar and Garhwa districts of Jharkhand with the intelligence having been directed to report about any ‘suspicious act’ to the police headquarters in the wake of Mumbai bomb blasts.
“We are keeping watch on people with past criminal records. The police have stepped up patrolling in sensitive areas in the districts,” Deputy Inspector General of Police (Palamau Range), Laxman Prasad Singh, told reporters.
Referring to Thursday midnight’s raid of a suspected SIMI activist in Ranchi by an anti—terrorist squad from Hyderabad, Singh said raids could not be ruled out anywhere, based on intelligence inputs.
“Besides keeping strict vigil in sensitive areas of Palamau division, the intelligence network has been alerted with the order to report any suspicious action immediately,” he added.
A senior IPS official had on Thursday said that the ATS team from Hyderabad carried out the raids at the house of a suspected SIMI activist at Bariatu in Ranchi in connection with a case pertaining to Ahmedabad, but could not locate him.
Deputy Inspector General of Police Laxman Prasad Singh told the media at Medininagar that special anti-naxal operation is being carried out in Palamau and Chatra districts with assistance from security forces in Bihar’s Gaya district.
The police and the para-military forces have launched a coordinated operation against all the Naxal outfits, including the CPI (Maoist) in Chatra and Palamau, he said.
The forces from Jharkhand’s Hazaribagh and Koderma and neighbouring Gaya are also assisting in the operation so that the extremists could not escape and confine to their areas.
“This operation will continue indefinitely as the effort will be to root out extremists from these areas,” he added.
Palamau and Chatra are among 18 of the 24 districts in the state where at least six Naxal outfits are operating, including the CPI (Maoist) and its splinter groups.
