Top Maoist functionary from Andhra Pradesh, Sadanala Ramakrishna, was arrested along with four other rebels from Kolkata in a successful joint operation by the Andhra Pradesh police and the special task force of the Kolkata police.
Ramakrishna, a mechanical engineer by profession, was the central technical committee head of the banned outfit. After Maoist commander Kishenji’s death in an encounter in 2011, Ramakrishna was given the charge of West Bengal and Orissa to supervise the procurement of arms and ammunitions, STF sources revealed.
With his arrest the CPI Maoists technical wing, TRAM, has been neutralised. A mechanical engineer from Regional Engineering College, Warangal, Ramakrishna was the technical brain behind the Maoists after Tech Madhu was arrested a few years back.
Originally from Karimnagar, Ramakrishna had six aliases: Santosh, S.V. Kasturi, Ramakrishna, Vinod, Bhanu and Dokra. He had a reward of `10 lakhs on his head.
Recently, the STF received a tip-off from the Andhra Pradesh police about Ramakrishna’s movements in Kolkata. The STF learnt that he had come to meet one Dipak Kumar, a Maoist leader from Durg in Chhattisgarh. In the meantime, a Greyhounds team of the Andhra police arrived in Kolkata.
On Wednesday afternoon, a joint police team arrested him near Mohammed Ali Park in central Kolkata. Dipak was arrested soon after from College Street, sources disclosed.
During interrogation, a workshop at Belghoria in North 24 Parganas was mentioned and three more rebels — Sukumar Mondal of Khardah in North 24 Parganas, Shambhu Charan Pal of Singur in Hooghly and Bapi Mudi from Burdwan were arrested from there in the evening. Twenty sockets of rocket launchers, 25 cartridges, 2.5 kg of explosives, a photocopy of a rocket launcher, a dairy, Maoist literature and Rs 5 lakh were recovered from them.
Joint commissioner of police (STF) Rajeev Mis-hra said, “The accused were involved in the acquisition, manufacture and supply of equipment required for fire arms, rocket launchers and grenades which were supplied to Maoist groups in other parts of country.” The arrested have been booked under Sections 120B, 121, 121A, 122 of the IPC besides the Arms Act and Explosive Substance Act. The five were produced at the Bankshal court in Kolkata on Thursday which remanded them in police custody till March 13.