NIA hopes to find lead for Congress rally attack with top maoist’s surrender

NEW DELHI: The surrender of top Maoist leader GK Prasad on Wednesday has given the National Investigation Agency (NIA) hope to find a breakthrough in a May attack that left more than two dozen people including some senior Congress party leaders dead in Chhattisgarh.

Prasad alias Gudsa Usendi was the chief spokesman of the CPI (Maoist) Dandakaranya Special Zonal Committee, the most powerful outfit of the group, and carried a reward of Rs 20 lakh on his head. Prasad surrendered along with his wife in Andhra Pradesh as they were apparently suffering from some ailments and had also fell out with the other senior leaders, a home ministry official said. An senior NIA official said the agency would soon seek the custody of Prasad and that it expects him to shed some light over the attack.

Congress leaders VC Shukla, Nand Kumar Patel and Mahendra Karma were among those who were killed in the May ambush on a group of Congressmen. A press statement from Prasad on May 26, claiming responsibility for the previous day’s ambush, had said that members of the People’s Liberation Guerilla Army had conducted the attack.

The NIA has been probing the massacre for the past several months but without much success. But, the NIA official told ET that the agency had already made some progress in the case after two Naxals with alleged links to the attack were arrested in Odisha. Prasad’s surrender comes at a time when Chief Minister Raman Singh’s BJP government in Chhattisgarh is facing strong criticism from the Congress for not making much progress in the case.

IB warns of naxal attacks in LS poll

NEW DELHI: Though Naxals could not make much of an impact in the assembly polls in Chhattisgarh, the Intelligence Bureau has warned that Naxals are planning to enforce a “poll boycott” in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls to disrupt the election process in the Maoist affected states of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha, Maharashtra and Bihar. IB has also warned of Naxals planning to strike against villagers and poll activists in Bastar in order to deter voters from turning out in large numbers in the LS polls.