Maoist leader arrested in Purulia

Kolkata: The Purulia district police arrested a Maoist leader identified as Sabyasachi Goswami alias Kishore Da alias Babu alias Pankaj alias Ajoy from Baghmundi on Thursday night.

He was produced at the local court on Friday and remanded to police custody for 14 days.

According to police, Goswami, a resident of Ghola area in North 24-Parganas is a CPI(Maoist) central committee member. Recently, police were tipped off about Goswami’s location somewhere in the Baghmundi area. Accordingly, police started gathering intelligence and on Thursday came to know that he had taken shelter in Chounia Forest in Baghmundi which is about 3 kilometres away from the Bengal-Jharkhand border in Purulia.

On Thursday night, a large contingent of police force surrounded the Chounia Forest and intercepted Goswami. Superintendent of Police (SP), Purulia, Avijit Banerjee informed that Goswami is the central committee member and also the member of the Eastern regional committee.

“We have found several pieces of literature of the banned organisation CPI(Maoist) and a 9 mm pistol along with ammunition. Recently, they had planned a meeting at the said forest area. We are probing to find out who else is connected with him,” said Banerjee.

Goswami was reportedly arrested multiple times earlier by several agencies. He was also named in the wanted list of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in connection with a case registered at the NIA Guwahati office for allegedly making attempts to spread the roots of the organisation in Assam. To get any information about Goswami, NIA had announced a reward of Rs 10 lakh.