A month after ambush killing five cops, four Maoists held

JAMSHEDPUR: In a major breakthrough, Seraikela-Kharswan police on Saturday arrested four Naxals responsible for killing of five policemen in an ambush at Kukru market in Tiruldih on June 14. Police seized two motorcycles, a mobile phone and posters (relating to the 2019 Lok Sabha poll boycott calls) from their possession.
DIG (Kolhan range) Kuldeep Dwivedi termed the arrests as a major breakthrough.He said, “We are committed to carry on with intensive operations until each perpetrator involved in the Kukru case is caught. Operations in the area will continue till the Naxals are wiped out.”
Five policemen — Manodhan Hansdah, Govardhan Paswan, Yudhister Malua, Dibru Purty and Dhaneswar Mahato — were killed in the Maoist ambush.
SP (Seraikela-Kharswan) Kartik S said the main conspirator in the case is Ramesh alias Anal da, a central committee member of the CPI (Maoist), who planned the ambush extensively and delegated the job to three squads led by Amit Mahato, Maharaj Parmanik and Atul Mahato, active in the Kolhan region. He said, “The motive of the attack was a bid to find a foothold in the area and revive the sagging morale of the Maoist cadres.”
Karthik further said, “A total of 21 rebels, who are members of the three squads, executed the crime after doing a recce of the area for two days before execution.” He said the arrested Maoist cadres revealed that Anal da worked out the ambush plan with Parmanik on June 13 at Arhanjah forest (in Seraikela). On June 14, seven separate groups, each consisting of three rebels rode to Kukru market on seven separate motorcycles from different directions at intervals of 15 minutes. On reaching the attack site, the rebels waited for over an hour for the police patrol to arrive. Once the jeep of the patrol party arrived and the policemen got down to have tea, four of them near the jeep were attacked from behind by the rebels using sharp weapons like knives and killed them on the spot. One policeman who went to the market was also attacked in the same manner, the SP said.
“After killing the policemen, the rebels snatched their firearms and set the jeep on fire and fired in the air to terrorize people before leaving,” SP said. The driver of the police jeep, Sukhlal Kudada, who was wearing plain clothes, merged with the crowd and escaped. He was the first to exit the vehicle and walked to the market apparently to arrange tea and water for the policemen when the ambush took place.
Out of the four arrested, hardcore rebels Sunil Tudu (native of Chowka) and Budhram Mardi (native of Ichagarh), were directly involved in killing policemen while the remaining two — Shriram Majhi and Ram Naresh Lohar alias Ramu (both natives of Chowka) — were part of the execution team. Squad leaders, Amit Mahato and Atul Mahato had gone to the attack site riding on the motorcycle to guide the ultras to execute the crime.
“The two bikes that we seized belong to Ram Naresh and Shriram Majhi,” the SP said, addng that Ram Naresh is also involved in the May 3 incident in Kharsawan in which an BJP election office was partly damaged with IED blast and in the May 20 incident at Hudanga picket in Kuchai in which five police jawans sustained multiple injuries when 22 low-intensity IEDs were exploded by the rebels.
Kartik said, “Our investigation team first arrested Sunil Tudu from Ichagarh and based on statement Budhram Mardi was arrested from near Patpur canal in Ichagarh while Shriram Majhi and Ramu Lohra were picked up from Hesakocha in Seraikela.”