S Ramakrishna Nabbed In Greyhounds-STF Operation
Hyderabad/Kolkata: In a prize catch, the elite Greyhounds commandos of Andhra Pradesh along with the Special Task Force (STF) of Kolkata police arrested top Maoist leader Sadhanala Ramakrishna alias Santosh along with four other rebels from Kolkata after a day-long operation on Wednesday.
The Maoist party suffered a big blow with the arrest of Ramakrishna from Karimnagar district, who is the central technical committee head and one of the senior most leaders. He carried a reward of Rs 10 lakh on his head. “His arrest is a setback for the banned outfit as it came within three months of the encounter killing of party central committee member Kishenji,” a senior IPS officer involved in anti-Naxal operations told TOI. Mallojula Koteswara Rao alias Kishenji was shot dead by security forces in the Hatilot forests of West Midnapore on November 24, 2011.
Ramakrishna and the others were produced before the Bankshall court in Kolkata on Thursday and remanded in police custody for 14 days. Apart from six improvised rockets, 25 rounds of ammunition, cartridges, two kgs of explosive material and Rs 5 lakh cash were recovered from them. Police alsorecovered the blueprints for making improvised explosive devices (IEDs) from them as it is alleged that Maoist cadres from West Bengal were learning how to make advanced IEDs from the leaders of the central technical committee.
Ramakrishna, 62, who also has aliases like Bhanu, Kumar, S B Kasturi and Dokhra, hails from the small Anthakkapeta village in Husnabad mandal. A gold medalist in mechanical engineering from Regional Engineering College, Warangal, Ramakrishna was adept at manufacturing pressure mines, grenades, double barrel and single barrel guns, besides rocket launchers. “Using his engineering background, he used to assemble spare parts and produce arms. He was always on the lookout for upgradation of new weapons technology,” sources said. Ramakrishna was instrumental in developing the IED technology for Maoists. “He recently held a workshop for cadres near Chennai on the use of IED,” said a police official.
He was closely associated with military head Namballa Keshav Rao, Cherukuri Rajkumar alias Azad and Kishenji, who also hailed from Karimnagar district. Ramakrishna went underground to join the Naxal movement in 1976-77 and was never seen again in AP. “In fact, his family and police came to know about his antecedents only 10 years ago as his operations spanned across the north, including Delhi and Haryana,” a teacher from Anthakkapeta told TOI. “He is even senior to Maoist head Ganapathi,” he said.
Intelligence officials said the arrest of Ramakrishna could be crucial as the Maoists were planning major strikes ever since the death of Kishenji. Ramakrishna a key Maoist member
“Ramakrishna is a key member in the Maoist party as he was only accessible to the central committee leaders and politburo members,” a senior official said.Along with Ramakrishna, the special team also nabbed Deepak Kumar alias Rajesh alias Prakash from Durg in Chhattisgarh, who is also suspected be a member of the central technical committee. In fact, it was Deepak whose arrest from outside the Presidency College gate on the busy College Street on Wednesday that sparked off rumours of a possible abduction.
Around 11 am on Wednesday, a white Bolero screeched to a halt outside the college. Passersby, bookstall owners and students watched in horror as five burly men got out of the SUV, caught hold of a man and bundled him into the vehicle. Deepak raised an alarm and locals rushed to his rescue. They chased the vehicle up to the Mahatma Gandhi Road crossing. The ‘operation’ turned dramatic from the College Street as near the Rafi Ahmed Road crossing, the SUV even knocked down a biker and was stopped by a traffic cop.
The STF personnel in the SUV, however, made the cops call up the police control room which ordered him to allow the vehicle to pass without hindrance. “That was not a kidnap. Deepak was the first to be arrested by the combined team of Kolkata police and AP Greyhounds,” clarified a top official.
“After arresting Deepak, we got leads about Ramakrishna and the others. After the arrests, several locations in Kolkata and the suburbs were searched,” he added. At Belghoria in North 24-Parganas, six sockets were seized which were packed with explosives and used by Maoists as improvised rockets. The other arrested rebels were Sukumar Mondal alias Swapan Roy alias Bablu from North 24-Parganas, Sambhu Charan Pal from Hooghly and Bapi Mudi of Burdwan.
The arrest of Charan Pal, 65, led to considerable consternation among locals, relatives and friends. His wife claimed that he was a daily wager in a furniture shop in Belghoria. “I can’t believe that this man was associated with Maoists. He used to leave home for work at 7 am and return at 11 pm,” a local panchayat leader said. Sources said Swapan Roy, who was picked up from northern Kolkata, used to manufacture IED parts. Curiously, the arrested Maoists have not been charged under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA).
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