Kolkata: In what the city police has described as a decisive blow to Maoist insurgency in Bengal, two long-time activists carrying a combined bounty of Rs 7 lakh surrendered on Friday, laying down an AK-47 and an INSAS rifle. With the husband-wife duo identified as Mangal and Malati joining the mainstream, police claimed no one from Bengal remained actively involved with Maoist squads.
Kolkata police commissioner Ajay Nand said 13 Maoists from Bengal, including Akash, had been arrested by Bengal and Jharkhand Police or surrendered in the state over the past year. Malati trained with the Gopiballavpur unit and the Ranjan Munda squad, which was involved in the 2009 kidnapping of Sankrail police station officer-in-charge Atindranath Dutta and the Nayagram killings.
“No one from Bengal is under police radar right now for being part of Maoist squads,” he said. Nand attributed the surrender to mounting operational pressure in Saranda.