Police arrest top Maoist leader Kanchan Da in Assam's Cachar district

Acting on a tip off from Central agencies about the movement and illegal/terror related activities of veteran Maoist leader Kanchan Da, who is member of the Central committee cum ideologue and strategist of CPI-Maoist, being present in general area near tri-junction of districts Cachar, Dima Hasao of Assam and Tamenglong district of Manipur, and keeping himself hidden there along with his associates, a team of Guwahati City Police had conducted operations.

Accordingly, on Mar 6, in a bid to nab the banned activists, Addl DCP Crime Branch Guwahati, Numal Mahatta, along with Inspector Sanjay Borgohain, Inspector Jyotirmoy Dutta of Crime Branch, accompanied by Assam Police Commandos, conducted a massive search operation splitting the search team into 5 groups, in suspected hideouts in Thaligram, Nagadong, Patimara Tea Garden situated under Udarband Police Station of Cachar district.

Consequently, on Mar 6 at about 5 pm while the team reached 16 No line of Patimara Tea Garden they noticed an old man aged about 70 years was trying to hide from the approaching search team.

"Instantly the search team was able to apprehend the person after chasing him and on questioning he identified himself to be Kanchan Da. Another search team conducted search in a suspected house from where the noted Kanchan Da had come out in an attempt to hide. During the search the  team could able to apprehend another suspected person, who on questioning identified himself to be Akash Urang @ Rahul @ Kajal, a member of Assam state organising committee of CPI-Maoist and a close associate of Kanchan Da. Both the apprehended activists of Maoist were thoroughly interrogated on the spot. They confessed that they had concealed one Laptop containing some valuable information at a place near Kumbha. Accordingly the team rushed towards Kumbha on being led by the apprehended Maoists and recovered the Laptop from a road side jungle, on being shown by them, and seized it accordingly as per law," Guwahati City Police Commissioner Harmeet Singh said. 
 

The CPI Maoist has been making attempts to spread the root of their organization in Assam in general and north east in particular. There has been lot of fund flows from the Eastern Regional Bureau to further the activities in Assam and Arun Kr Bhattacharjee @ Jyotish @ Kabir @ Kanak @ Kanchan da, s/o late Gopal Krishna Bhattacharjee, R/O  20/1 Salimar Road, PS- Shibpur, Howrah 3, West Bengal had been assigned the task to take the command of Assam and North Eastern Region.

The arrested, Arun Kr Bhattacharjee was an ex-MCC Special Committee Member till 2004 and after that Central Committee Member of CPI (Maoist) till date. 

He was found in possession of cash amount of Rs 3,60,000 being the proceeds of terrorism and other incriminating articles.

The CPI (Maoist) is an organization proscribed as per first schedule of UA (P) Act, 1967. The motive of the organization in Assam and NE states are to create a red corridor in NE states to wage war in a coordinated way with other organization with similar ideology, to set up core committee in Assam to facilitate the command and control of the organization, to arrange party congress in Assam for analysing the activities and further plan of action to accelerate the Maoist activities with the assistance of other regional committees of India, to arrange weapons for terror financing by way of extortion to intensify the illegal activities, to increase the membership and impart training to the comrades for arms struggle, to set up camps at various locations to coordinate with other similar organization for unified action against the security forces as a part of larger conspiracy to commit terrorist strikes as being done in other parts.

A case U/S 120/120B/121/121A/122/384 /302 IPC, R/W Sec- 16/17/18/18B/19/20 UA(P) Act has been taken up against the noted apprehended accused persons.

(Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath)