Top Maoist arrested in Bihar's Rohtas

|HT|

Vijay Kumar Arya, a top Maoist, was arrested from Samahuta in Bihar’s Rohtas late on Tuesday evening, a police officer said on Thursday. Rohtas police superintendent Ashish Bharti said Arya, who is in his 60s, was staying in Samahuta, a hilly area, and allegedly reviving the Sone-Ganga-Vindhyachal zone committee of the Maoists by collecting levies and making new recruitments.

Arya was arrested along with his associate Umesh Chaudhary. Police said electronic gadgets such as hard disks, pen drives, letterheads, and levy receipts were recovered from them.

Police said the arrests were made on the basis of central and state intelligence inputs about the presence of top Maoist leaders in the Shahabad and Magadh zones. A special team of police and Sashastra Seema Bal was accordingly formed to arrest them.

Arya is a resident of Karma in the Gaya district and a post-graduate in economics from Magadh University. He worked as a lecturer before joining the Maoist Communist Centre of India in 2004. Police said he became an active member of the group and spread Maoist ideologies. He carried a ₹3 lakh reward on his head. Arya was earlier arrested in 2011 from Bihar’s Katihar district and was lodged in Gaya, Bhagalpur, and Andhra Pradesh jails. He was released on bail in 2018 when he went underground and was allegedly reorganising the Maoist structure in Bihar and Jharkhand, police said. Arya’s daughter, Shobha Kumari, won the 2021 panchayat elections in the Aurangabad district.

“The Maoist has given important information about the Maoist structure and support during interrogation which would be much helpful in future operations,” Bharti said.

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