The Chhattisgarh police has begun a probe into the alleged nexus between some industries and Naxals in insurgency-hit Bastar region in the state following recent arrest of two people on charges of transferring money to ultras “on behalf of a Dantewada-based private firm”, a senior police officer said on Sunday.
“Earlier, there were talks that some industries operating in south Bastar have become major funding sources of outlawed CPI (Maoist). The Friday’s incident, in which two people were arrested while channelising `15 lakhs to rebels in a Dantewada village market, has prompted us to launch a probe into alleged link of some industries in Bastar with Maoists,” the police officer confided with this newspaper requesting anonymity.
Sources said a local contractor of Kirandul area under Dantewada district had been under surveillance of the police ever since the whistleblower WikiLeaks had last fortnight leaked US cables saying that a big company was paying “protection money” to Naxals to secure its business operations in south Bastar.
The police got suspicious when the contractor — B.K. Lala (50) — withdrew a huge cash of `15 lakhs from his account in a SBI branch in Kirandul on Wednesday.
Acting on a tipoff that two Naxal leaders of Darbha division committee — Vinod and Raghu — were camping in Palanar forest to receive huge money from a businessman and the transfer would be done on Friday, the police stepped up vigil in the area.
“Lala was spotted coming in a Bolero jeep, bearing registration no CG 18 H 0968, at Palanar at around 12 pm. The police laid a trap for him. When he was handing over the cash to two Naxals at Palanar weekly market, policemen deployed there pounced on them,” a senior Dantewada district police officer said.
While Lala and an alleged Naxal sympathiser Lingaram Kodupi were caught “on the spot”, another alleged woman ultra Sodu Soni managed to escape.