Ranchi police nab three Maoists

Ranchi/ Chatra (Jharkhand), June 24 : Police in Ranchi have nabbed three Maoists of the Jharkhand Liberation Tigers (JLT) outfit and also recovered arms and ammunition from them on Monday.

"This outfit has been in the news recently for its fanatic activities. Earlier, it was known as the Jharkhand Liberation Tigers (JLT) and now they have changed it to PLFI (People's Liberation Front of India). They have their areas of dominance in Orissa, Bihar and Bengal apart from Jharkhand. Ranchi Police has arrested an important sub-zonal commander of this outfit," said M.S. Bhatia, Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Ranchi.

The police also recovered four rifles, one revolver and 300 live cartridges from them.

The JLT is a breakaway group of the mainstream Maoist outfit, the Communist Party of India-Maoist.

Meanwhile, the Maoists have killed two villagers and blown up two buildings in separate incidents in Jharkhand's Chatra District.

Jharkhand along with Chhattisgarh has the maximum incidents of naxal violence and casualty. According to latest figures by the Home Ministry, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh together account for 67.99 per cent of the total incidents and 75.57 per cent of the total casualties. Jharkhand accounted for 157 casualties in 482 incidents in 2007, compared to 124 casualties in 310 incidents of naxal violence in 2006.

Also known as Naxalites, they say they are fighting on behalf of the rural poor and landless and want to build a communist state.

The government has recently taken a new stance on the Maoist insurgency, pulling the affected states together to coordinate their response. It says it will combine improved policing with socio-economic measures to defuse grievances that fuel the Maoist cause.

ANI