Indian police have arrested a senior Maoist rebel blamed for an attack on a police camp in the east of the country last month that killed 25 people, officials said yesterday.
The man, known by the names Deepak and Venkateswar Reddy, is a close associate of the rebels’ top commander Kishenji, West Bengal government official Raj Kanojia said.
A special police team arrested the 45-year-old Reddy late on Tuesday in Kolkata, capital of West Bengal state.
“Reddy is a key aide of Maoist leader Kishenji,” Kanojia said, adding that intelligence officials had been shadowing him for days.
“He is an explosives expert and we think he had a major role in the Silda attack that claimed the lives of 24 policemen and a civilian in a western district of West Bengal,” Kanojia said, referring to the Feb. 15 attack in Midnapore, in which about 20 rebels attacked a police camp using guns and landmines.
Police at the time described the armed assault as the worst ever by Maoists on security forces in West Bengal.
The Maoists said they were responding to a large-scale government offensive aimed at flushing the outlawed insurgents from their strongholds.
New Dehli considers Maoist rebels to be the country’s biggest internal security threat. The insurgents are estimated to number between 10,000 and 20,000 and are predominantly active in a large swathe of the country from the north and east — called the “Red Corridor.”
The Maoist insurgency began as a peasant uprising in 1967 and has now spread to 20 of India’s 29 states. They claim to be fighting for the rights of impoverished tribal people and other victims of state violence.
The government has offered talks, but only if the Maoists, renounce violence. Kishenji last week told local media that the guerrillas were ready for talks if the government suspended their offensive.
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