Raipur: In a notable development, a joint team of police and Indo-Tibet Border Police (ITBP) on March 12 arrested an alleged associate of the banned Maoist group from Mohla-Manpur-Ambagarh Chowki district.
The arrested individual has been identified as Mohan Gawde, a resident of Pankhanjur of Kanker district who used to assist the Maoists in their unlawful activities, alongside collecting levy for them from the local sources.
According to the officials, Gawde used to run a trolley owned by Arvind Tulawi, who was already arrested by the police. Tulawi was arrested after the police recovered a tractor and a trolley from Madanwada area last year.
Subsequent enquiry into the matter later revealed that Gawde used to provide money earned from the trolley to the Maoists after which he was arrested by the join team on Wednesday.
The officials are currently gathering information from the arrested accused and further investigation into the case is being carried out.
It is worth mentioning here that police in August last year had also arrested five men assigned with the task of collecting levy money and subsequently channelise it for various unlawful activities carried out by the banned group.
Four of the arrested men were residents of Bijapur while one of the accused was residing in Raipur. Subsequent investigation into the matter led to busting of a terror funding network under which funds collected as levy money from tendu patta contractors were routed through a bank account of one of the arrested individual.
The levy money was collected with the help of local Maoist associates which was subsequently channelized to the Maoists in cash for acquiring weapons, ration, medicines and other essentials for them.
Five Maoists held in Bijpaur
In a related development, security forces in a counter-insurgency operation arrested five Maoists near the forests of Madudbaka village of Usur in Bijapur district
According to the information, a joint team of district police and Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) was dispatched on an area domination exercise on Monday where the team nabbed five men associated with the banned outfit.
The security team has also recovered Maoist pamphlets and other materials from the possession of the accused. It must be noted that security forces are keeping a vigil watch ahead of the TCOC campaign of the Maoists.
