Four Maoists gunned down in Valmikinagar encounter

BETTIAH/PATNA: Four Maoists were killed in an encounter with a joint team of Bihar Police’s special task force and Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) in the Valmiki Tiger Reserve (VTR) jungles bordering Nepal in West Champaran district on Friday morning. One policeman and an SSB inspector were injured in the shootout. The joint team recovered three SLRs, one AK-56 assault rifle and one .303 rifle from the spot.
DIG (Champaran Range) Lallan Mohan Prasad said the joint operation was conducted by the Special Task Force of Bagaha police and the SSB on inputs received that Maoists were moving in the jungles. Deputy commandant Narpat Singh led the SSB’s ‘small action team’, SSB Patna frontier IG Sanjay Kumar said, adding the injured Rituraj was out of danger.
The slain Maoists were identified as Vipul from Muzaffarpur, Kiran, Nakul and Chhotey Sahni alias Suraj. Suraj is from Valmikinagar. Vipul had been arrested in 2018 for the murder of Champapur-Gonauli panchayat mukhiya Manoj Singh in the VTR region. He was out on bail.
“Bagaha SP Rajeev Ranjan has rushed in with reinforcements to intensify the combing operations made difficult by overnight rain that has brought the jungle rivulets in spate and made the dense jungle terrain sluggish,” the DIG said.
IG Kumar said the four Maoists were from ‘Rajan’s Dasta’. Another senior SSB officer said Nakul was the right hand and bodyguard of Maoist commander Ram Babu Ram alias Rajan.
STF sources said it was a big setback for Ram and his cadre and a major success for police and SSB in north Bihar before the upcoming assembly election. “Ram is a member of Uttar Pradesh-Uttar Bihar Special Area Committee (UU-SAC) of the CPI (Maoist),” a senior STF officer said. “His ‘dasta’ had 12 armed cadres and four of them have been neutralized,” he added.
The encounter took place near Chautha nallah, about 30km northeast of Bagaha. This is one of the nine streams that flow perpendicular from the Bhapsa river running through the thick forests. In 2017, VTR authorities had refurbished an 18km-long jungle path from Harnataar to Naurangia Done to facilitate all-weather commute for the villagers around Naurangia. This road is the only connect for these forest villagers in the midst of VTR between Harnataar and Bagaha. About 10km of this road lies in the core area of the Tiger reserve. Chautha nallah flows through this core area, away from human habitation.
In 2015-16, a case of tiger poaching had been reported from the vicinity of Chautha nallah, but investigations found local involvement in the crime. VTR authorities subsequently rebuilt the all-weather jungle road. An anti-poaching camp was set up on the border of the Gonauli and Naurangia forest ranges on this road. Poaching has since been checked.
The Friday’s encounter has brought the focus back on the VTR jungles as a possible Moist hotbed after over 15 years’ hiatus. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, these jungles had been a refuge of Maoists from Telangana/Andhra Pradesh, too. Across the border, Nepal then was in the midst of the Communists’ ‘jan andolan’.
(With inputs from Tirthraj Kushwaha in Bagaha)