Sabyasachi Panda, Odisha’s most-wanted Maoist leader and main accused in the murder of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Laxmananand Saraswati, was arrested in the early hours of Friday in Berhampur town in Ganjam district.
The police had been close on his heels since February after he received a bullet injury during an encounter and got stuck in the forest area on the Ganjam-Gajapati border with just three other rebels.
“He was arrested in an intelligence-based operation,” said Sanjeev Marik, Odisha’s police chief. Mr. Panda was arrested from a house at Badabazar. The police claim to have recovered a revolver, 10 live cartridges, 10 mobile phones, one laptop, 800 grams of gold, over Rs. 2 lakh in cash and 45 SIM cards, among other items.
Once dubbed as Odisha’s “Che Guevara”, Mr. Panda fell out with the Communist Party of India (Maoist) in August 2012 after he accused its supreme commander, Ganapathi, of being “feudal” in an open letter. Soon afterwards, he was expelled and then went on to float his own Maoist party.
'Allow him to join mainstream'
Subhashree Panda, wife of top-rung naxal leader Sabyasachi Panda, who was caught by police, made an appeal to give her husband an opportunity to return to the mainstream.
Expressing apprehensions about Maoist leader’s safety in police custody here on Friday, Ms Panda said, “my husband should not be treated like petty criminal. He was fighting for public interest cause although his medium of struggle was wrong. Police should immediately provide him proper treatment.” She claimed that Sabyasachi himself was not involved in killing of innocent people.
