Top Naxal leader Sabyasachi Panda arrested in Odisha: Reports

Mangalore Today News Network

Bhubaneswar, July 18, 2014:  Reports claimed on Friday that one of the top Naxal leaders and Odisha’s most wanted Sabyasachi Panda has been arrested.

As per reports, Panda was arrested in Odisha’s Ganjam district by the state police.

Director General of Police Sanjeev Marik informed that Panda was nabbed during a police raid at a hideout following intelligence inputs.

Panda had hit international headlines in 2012 after he engineered the kidnapping of two Italians. He was expelled by the CPI(Maoist) soon after.

He was also wanted in more than 50 criminal cases, including the murder of Swami Laxamananda Saraswati and four of his aides in Kandhamal district in 2008 that had triggered communal violence in the region.

The hunt for Panda was intensified recently after he floated a new party, the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist). The aim behind the creation of the new party was to bring like-minded "revolutionaries" on a single platform.

Security forces feared that post the creation of the new party, Panda could order a step up in violence in the state’s Naxal-infested districts, like Ganjam, Kandhamal, Gajapati and Rayagada.