Assam: Maoist strategist Arun Kr Bhattacharjee alias Kanchan Da held in Cachar

Guwahati: Assam police has arrested top Maoist ideologue Arun Kr Bhattacharjee, popularly known as Kanchan Da and one of his associates from the Cachar district.

Police said 70-year-old Arun Kr Bhattacharjee, who is the central committee member of CPI (Maoist) and a stagiest, is carrying a reward of Rs 3 lakh on his head.  

Acting on a tip-off about the movement of Maoist leader Kanchan Da and his terror-related activities in the general area near tri-junction in Assam’s Cachar and Dima Hasao districts and Tamenglong district of Manipur, a team of Assam police crime branch launched a search operation on Sunday evening.

The operation was conducted in Thaligram, Nagadong, Patimara Tea Estate under Udarband Police station in Cachar district and the Maoist leader was subsequently arrested from 16 No line of Patimara Tea Estate.

The police also recovered Rs 3, 60000, a laptop and other incriminating articles from his possession.

During the search, the team also arrested another Maoist cadre identified as Akash Orang alias Rahul alias Kajal.

Police officials said Akash is a member of the Assam state organizing committee of CPI-Maoist and a close associate of Kanchan Da.

The CPI (Maoist) has been making attempts to spread the root of their organization in Assam in particular and Northeast in general.

There has been a lot of fund flows from the Eastern Regional Bureau to further the activities in Assam.

Kanchan da, who is also known as Jyotish, Kabir and Kanak, hails from Shibpur in West Bengal’s Howrah.

He was assigned the task to take command of Assam and the Northeastern region.

The rebel outfit made a blueprint to create a red corridor in the Northeast to wage war in a coordinated way with other organization with similar ideologies.

The outfit also planned to set up a core committee in Assam to facilitate the command and control of the organization and organise a 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.