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The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has chargesheeted two more accused in connection with a case pertaining to the seizure of arms and ammunition linked with the conspiracy to attack the security forces by the cadres of outlawed CPI Maoists.
The accused, identified as Agnu Ganjhu and Khudi Munda, both residents of Jharkhand, have been charged by the premiere investigation agency. The accused have been charged under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), Arms Act, Explosive Substance Act and Unlawful Activities (prevention) Act, 1967.
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Both the accused have been charged in connection with a conspiracy hatched by the cadres of the CPI Maoist led by notorious Maoist and Regional Commander, Ravindra Ganjhu to launch a deadly attack on the security forces in the Bauxite Mines area to take revenge of the arrest of their Eastern Regional Bureau Chief Prashant Bose.
The Maoists had assembled in the Bulbul forest area of Lohardaga district of Jharkhand to further their nefarious design. Upon receiving information about the presence of the extremists, the local police along with the personnel of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) had launched a massive manhunt to nab them.
On their way to the said spot, the forces came under indiscriminate firing by the Maoist to which the forces retaliated heavily. After the gunfight, a large quantity of arms and ammunition were also recovered by the forces.
It is to be noted that a total of 9 people were chargesheeted in the case initially following which the NIA had also filed a supplementary charge-sheet against sixteen accused, including a woman, in connection with the case in August.
Further, the Investigation Agency had also chargesheeted four more accused in the case between August and December last year. The charge-sheet filed by the NIA on May 22 has taken the total number of accused charge-sheeted to 31 in the case. The case was initially registered by the local police in February 2022, which was subsequently taken over by the NIA in June 2022.
NIA investigations into the matter have revealed that the members of the proscribed CPI Maoist had hatched a conspiracy to carry out violent acts and unlawful activities and endanger the security of India. Their plan was to destabilise the democratically elected Government by committing terrorist acts and violent attacks.
Who is Prashant Bose
It is noteworthy that security forces in a swift operation had arrested top Maoist leader Prashant Bose in November 2021. He was arrested along with his wife, Sheela Marandi when the duo was travelling from Parasnath range of Giridih district to Saranda forest area in West Singhbhum district, a Maoist hotbed for long.
At the time of his arrest, Bose was considered second in command in the outlawed CPI Maoist after its general secretary, Nambala Keshava Rao alias Basavraj. Bose is also a member of the Polit Bureau and the Central Committee (CC) of the banned outfit while his wife Sheela is the only woman to hold a post in the CC of the Maoist.
Bose was heading the Eastern Regional Bureau (ERB), which includes States of Bihar, Jharkhand and Odisha at the time of arrest, he was also one of the founding-member of the Maoist Communist Centre of India (MCCI), which had merged with the Communist Party of India (Marxist – Leninist) People’s War (People’s War Group) in 2004, to form the CPI (Maoist). He was also considered the architect of the proposed Red Corridor of the outlaws and was carrying a whopping bounty of Rs1 crore on his head.
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