A powerful bomb was found in a polling booth in Chatra and three Maoists were arrested on the eve of the first phase of Jharkhand Assembly elections on Tuesday.
Official sources said that the bomb was recovered from the booth and defused by the bomb squad on Monday evening. The three Maoists affiliated to the People’s Liberation Front (PLF), a breakaway faction of CPI (Maoist), were arrested in an area bordering Simdega and Gumla district. Simdega is going to polls in the first phase on Tuesday.
Two cane bombs, each weighing 50 kg, and 25 army uniforms were recovered from Khunti district, one of the most vulnerable areas in Maoist-infested Jharkhand, a few days ago. This happened shortly after Maoists owing allegiance to different factions put up posters in nearby Latehar to boycott the Jharkhand Assembly elections. Following an alert from the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and other security agencies, a sanitisation drive was carried out after which the police stumbled upon cane bombs and army uniforms.
Lohardagga and Latehar are two of the 13 Assembly segments which will witness polling in the first phase on November 25.
Jharkhand Congress president Sukhdeo Bhagat is contesting from the reserved constituency Lohardagga, from where he lost the 2009 Assembly polls to Kamal Kishore Bhagat by a wafer-thin margin of 600 votes.
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