INDIA. Mumbai: CPI (Maoist) activist Samrat Chakraborty (37) alias ‘Nilkamal Sikdar’ was arrested by the Guwahati wing of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) from Sodepur, Kolkata. Chakraborty was arrested in a case related to setting up units of the outlawed group in Assam, NIA said in a statement on Tuesday.
The CPI (Maoist) has been designated as a terrorist organization in India under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act since 2009.
Chakraborty, a resident of Seth Bagan Road, North 24 Parganas district, was arrested from Mahispata, near Narayana School on the Kalyani Expressway. He was known by many aliases such as Amit, Argha, Nirmal, and Nirman. The arrest was made following a lead that he was camping somewhere in the Nadia district.
Samrat was shifting from Nadia to North 24-Parganas for the last few days, and his phone was switched off frequently, making it difficult for officials to zero in on him.
On Monday, the NIA officials tracked him down to a godown on Kalyani Expressway. Officials said that this artery connects Kalyani in Nadia to Birati in North 24 Parganas and arrested him.
He spread the network in districts like Calcutta, Nadia, Murshidabad, and Malda of West Bengal in 2011. In 2016 he shifted to Assam. But he returned to WB and took shelter in parts of Nadia and North 24-Parganas. His role was restricted to grooming young recruits and preparing them for an armed rebellion.
Samrat again went to Assam to spread the network, particularly in the tea gardens of the northeastern states. His area included the pockets of Cachar, Karimganj, Dibrugarh, and Dhubri districts in Assam, and he used to work in tandem with veteran Maoist leader Arun Kumar Bhattacharjee (alias ‘Jyotish’, ‘Kabir’, ‘Kanak’ and ‘Kanchan da’). After Bhattacharjee was arrested, Samrat returned to Kolkata early this year and went into hiding.
The NIA said the case (No RC-01/2022/NIA/GUW) is related to the arrest of Bhattacharjee, a central committee member and an ideologue and strategist of the CPI (Maoist).
He was assigned the task of establishing the CPI (Maoist) organization in Assam and to further spreading the group’s roots in the state in general and the northeast in particular.
The NIA, on September 2, filed a charge sheet against six arrested accused, including Bhattacharjee, in the special NIA court in Guwahati.
“Further investigations in the case revealed that accused Chakraborty was an active member of CPI (Maoist) organization based in West Bengal. He was a linkman in clandestine communication between the top hierarchy of CPI (Maoist) organization and Bhattacharjee, who was operating from his hideout in Assam,” the NIA stated.
“Chakraborty had visited the Cachar district of Assam on several occasions to assist Bhattacharjee in furthering the activities of the CPI (Maoist) organization in the northeastern states on the specific instructions of the eastern regional bureau of the party. Further investigations are in progress,” the NIA spokesperson said.
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