Hardcore Naxal 'Company' held

SAMBALPUR: Sambalpur Police arrested hardcore Naxal Dhanu Dehuri alias Bhagwan Jhankar from Chamunda in Meghpal area along with Naxal cadre Gobinda Jal of Laikerabahal under Jujomura police station.

More popular as Company in Naxal ranks, Dhanu was involved in all the operations including murder, kidnapping and burning of vehicles and had even smuggled arms from Jharkhand to the region. He has 15 warrants pending against him in Sambalpur, Rairakhol and Deogarh and was a part of reconnaissance of ‘Operation Bargarh’.

Talking to the media in the presence of Sambalpur SP Sanjay Kumar, Dhanu, who was elected ward member uncontested in the panchayat polls in 2002 from Sarapali, said he was lured into the ultra outfit as they had talked about social justice.

"But I was dejected when I saw innocent people were being killed and money collected for self and family," he revealed. He said Maoists were into extortion from quarry and rice mill owners and he had acted as a conduit in collection of money from one rice mill owner.

Admitting that he had ferried arms comprising one AK-47, 3 SLR, one carbine and 6 rifles (303) from Jharkhand on foot via forests in Sundargarh which had taken him 10 days, he said there were about 25 to 30 well-armed cadres led by Robin still working for the outfit in the region.

He said Naxal Goverdhan Budek had long distanced himself from Maoist activities and his whereabouts were not known. Operation Bargarh and the attack on Nayagarh were planned together as appeared in this website's newspaper, Kumar said and added Dhanu had been given charge of social networking and identifying forest escape route to Chhattisgarh.

But due to some last minute problem, Operation Bargarh had to be shelved, Kumar added.

Jal said he was associated with the Naxals for a couple of days and had been sent off to Punjab after the killing of Kadar Singh on January 23, 2003, the first murder in the district by the Naxals.