KISHAN KILLED, ‘99%’ Identity test waits for rebel prisoners
KISHAN KILLED, '99%'
Identity test waits for rebel prisoners
NARESH JANA AND PRONAB MONDAL
Burishole (West Midnapore), Nov. 24: Kishan, the hooded Maoist mastermind who issued a death threat to a chief minister on TV, was suspected with "99 per cent" certainty to have been killed by the joint forces in a West Midnapore jungle this evening.
A Telegraph reporter, who had seen Kishan earlier this month, said late tonight that the dead man in a photograph from the encounter site "very much" resembled the guerrilla leader.
The body of the middle-aged man was found in the Burishole forest around 5.15pm after a police-Maoist gunfight, director-general of police Naparajit Mukherjee said at Writers' Buildings.
"An AK-47 and a hearing aid (the 55-year-old Kishan used one) were found beside it," Mukherjee said. He added, without explaining how, that the police knew Kishan used that particular AK-47 and so suspected the body was his.
Tomorrow, the body is to be taken to Midnapore town, 100km from the spot, for a "full and final" identification by surrendered and arrested Maoists lodged in Midnapore jail, police sources said.
"If the dead man is indeed Kishan, we will have made a massive breakthrough," an officer said. The Telugu-speaking guerrilla leader, whose real name was Mallojula Koteshvar Rao, is believed to have planned most of the major rebel operations in Bengal in recent years.
Asked if it was Kishan, Union home secretary R.K Singh told reporters in Delhi: "Most likely"¦ 99 per cent it is him because our forces were tailing him. But we have told our men to be 100 per cent sure."
The body — and that of another slain guerrilla — lay in the forest late tonight, the police waiting for forensic experts to arrive and examine them even as a gun battle continued at a nearby spot.
The dead man suspected to be Kishan had his face wrapped in a gamchha — a Kishan trademark during his TV interviews, in one of which he had declared that then chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee was on the rebels' hit list.
Bhattacharjee's successor learnt the news of the Maoist leader's probable death as she stepped out of the Bengal pavilion at a Delhi trade fair around 6pm. Mamata Banerjee carried on walking around the fairground, waving at the crowds and shaking hands, but her eyes were fixed on the messages bombarding her mobile.
"I have no confirmation or information," she told reporters before walking off to watch inmates from Bengal jails enact Tagore's Balmiki Pratibha, the story of a forest bandit's transformation to a man of peace.
Kishan had apparently grown so confident that last week he had told a Telugu news channel that the "useless and worthless" Bengal police were incapable of catching him.
Today, the CPM described his elimination as an "achievement'' for the Trinamul government.
Director-general Mukherjee said the walls began closing in on Kishan two days ago when the police were tipped off about a Maoist leader's movement in the Kushboni forest that adjoins Burishole.
"We suspected that Kishan and Suchitra (guerrilla leader and wife of slain Maoist top gun Sashadhar Mahato) were leading the squad and planning an attack on the joint forces," he said.
The forces raided a village in Kushboni yesterday and arrested three people who revealed that a woman and a man, guarded by armed commandos, had been staying in the village but had fled just before the police arrived.
The police suspected the duo were Kishan and Suchitra. This morning they raided several nearby villages on the chance that the rebels could be hiding in one of them since the forest was swarming with police.
In one village, some residents led them to the home of a college student who they claimed had Maoist links. The police found some maps, a laptop and letters written by Maoists. "We decided that Kishan must have left them behind in his hurry to flee. He couldn't have gone far as there were too many policemen around," an officer said. "So we decided to raid Burishole forest."
About 1,000 policemen formed a five-ring cordon around the forest and slowly closed in on the rebels. Around 3.30pm, the forces came up against firing from inside the forest and a gun battle began. The rebel guns fell silent around 5.15.
The police waited a while before moving in cautiously. They found the body of the middle-aged man. He wore a jacket and a thick shirt made of warm material.
"Everything about him fitted the descriptions of Kishan that we had," an officer said, adding the dead man's face matched the police photographs. Home secretary Singh said Kishan's latest photos were being sent to Bengal.
Late in the night, officers said the remaining members of the guerrilla squad were still firing at the forces from a nearby point.
"Jawans saw a woman limping away. We believe it was an injured Suchitra," an officer said.
The police have begun appealing over the public address system for Suchitra to surrender, assuring her the state government would take care of her treatment.
Home ministry sources said Kishan may have been "betrayed" by some of his aides. If he is indeed dead, it further depletes the Maoists' higher rungs.
Three central committee members have been arrested this year alone. "The number of central committee members has dropped from 38 to 22, which will certainly affect the CPI (Maoist)," a North Block official said.
Over the past two years, the official number of Maoist-hit districts has fallen from 223 to 182, though the total area of "liberated zones" has increased.
