Operation Octopus: Large haul of explosives recovered in drive against Maoists in Jharkhand

Ranchi, Sep 7 A large haul of explosives was recovered by the security forces on Tuesday from a bunker at Jharkhand's Budha Pahar, a safe haven of Maoists for the last two decades.

With the mountain on the Jharkhand-Chhattisgarh border, security forces from both states took up Operation Octopus to crack down on the Maoists.

During the operation going on for the last 15 days, the Maoists tried to stop the security forces by conducting more than 30 serial blasts in the Thaliya and Tisia forests adjacent to the mountain, but the security forces proceeded with full caution. During this, there was a big success on Tuesday as security forces seized a large quantity of explosives from the bunker.

Latehar SP Anjani Anjan said that a Chinese cylinder grenade, 35 Chinese grenades, three Chinese cone grenades, two cylinder bombs of 10 kg, 11 landmines of 3 kg, seven landmines of two kg, six landmines of one kg, five Tiffin bombs, one pressure cooker bomb, 25 arrow bombs, 2 kg ammonium nitrate, two kg urea, semi-finished barrel grenade launcher, drill machine, 350 rounds of SLR, 16 can landmines, three pressure landmines, and 500 meters of codex wire were found at the bunker.

The bunker was demolished after the recovery of the explosives.

According to security forces and police, there are 30 to 35 Maoists on Budha Pahar. Among them Saurabh alias Markus Baba and Naveen are the most notorious. Saurabh, who has a reward of Rs 25 lakh on him, is a special area committee member of the Maoists. Apart from this, Maoists like Naveen Yadav, Mrityunjay Bhuia, Santu Bhuiya and Ravindra Ganjhu are still in the Budha Pahar area.

Jharkhand DGP Neeraj Sinha is closely monitoring Operation Octopus. Apart from this, three IPS officers are making a strategy for the daily operation, in which personnel of Jharkhand Police, the CRPF, Jaguar Assault Group, the IRB and the CoBRA Battalion are also involved.

Significantly, the Budha Pahar is spread over an area of 55 square kilometres, spanning Latehar and Garhwa of Jharkhand and Balrampur of Chhattisgarh. In 2018 also, the security forces had conducted a big operation here. During this, many bunkers were demolished, and several Maoists were nabbed.

Due to the blockade put by the security forces in 2018, Maoist Arvind, who had Rs 1 crore reward on his head, died at Budha Pahar because he could not get any help from outside during his illness. However, during this operation, the security forces also suffered losses and six soldiers were martyred. After the death of Arvind, Sudhakaran and his wife were made in charge of Budha Pahar. Sudhakaran had surrendered before the police along with the entire team in Telangana two years ago.

Sudhakaran's surrender was followed by a dozen other commanders who gradually surrendered.

However, more than 30 Maoists are still present there, operation by security forces is on to catch them. Drive against Maoists is also being conducted in other areas of Jharkhand. During this, two Maoists were killed in Kuchai police station area in the border area of Seraikela-Kharsawan and West Singhbhum last week.

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