Multiple reasons, including failing health and desertion of close associates and cadres, could have forced Odisha’s most wanted Maoist Sabyasachi Panda to leave the jungles and land in Berhampur town, a busy urban centre where he was tracked down and captured by the security personnel in a dramatic midnight operation on Thursday.
Police sources said on Saturday that though Panda was residing in the house in Bada Bazar area, a crowded locality of the southern Odisha business hub, for more than one month, nobody in the neighbourhood were aware of the fact that state’s most wanted Maoist was staying there.
The landlady of the three-storey building, 70-year-old Mahalaxmi Rao, told the police that a month and half back Panda had come to her asking for a single room.
After negotiation, she had agreed to give him a room and the rent was fixed at Rs 1,000 per month.
“Like rest of the people in the locality, she was also not aware of his identity,” said a police officer.
Of late, there were plenty of media reports about the top Maoist’s deteriorating health conditions inside the forests while on the run to escape both from the police as well as Maoist cadres from Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh who were reportedly gunning for his head after Panda resigned from the party following differences with his senior colleagues and formed a new outfit of his own.
His wife Mili Panda, while talking to newsmen here on Friday, had also indicated about her rebel husband’s health problem. “Apart from producing in the court, the police should also get him medically examined immediately,” she had said reacting to Panda’s arrest.
Decrease in his cadre’s strength had also become a major worry for Panda. Majority of his close associates and aides who had left the CPI(Maoists) along with him and joined his new outfit had either surrendered to the police or died in police encounters. “He was left with at best only 10 cadres,” said an intelligence officer.
Police have already begun a detailed investigation to know what the Maoist leader was doing in Berhampur during his more than a month long stay.
“We are gathering detailed information as to where he was moving around in the southern town and whom he was meeting.
We are investigating if he was seeking medical help or was on a drive to recruit new cadres for his outfit.
Both cannot be ruled out as he was carrying Rs 2 lakh in cash besides gold ornaments worth lakhs of rupees”, said a senior intelligence official who was involved in the mid-night operation.