Police nab three Maoist rebels in Bihar

Gaya, Mar 16 (ANI): Police arrested three rebels including one with a bounty on his head from Gaya in Bihar.

Officials said Sajiwan Baitha alias Bhupendra, a top rebel functionary, who has been evading arrest since 1992, was arrested on a tip-off.

"We received information that Baitha and his associates came to extort money from a villager. Police team arrested him with the help of Special Task Force. During interrogation, he revealed his involvement in various Maoist activities. Police also recovered extortion money and some Maoist literature," said M R Nayak, superintendent of police, Gaya.

The government had declared a bounty of 25,000 rupees for Baitha's arrest.

Baitha said he was working as a secretary in one of the zones.

"In our village, people torture and suppress poor, so I became a Maoist. I was working as the secretary of the Magadh Zone Committee," said Baitha.

The rebels say they are fighting for the rights of the poor and landless. They usually operate in a large swathe of the country stretching from the east to some southern states.

Thousands of people have been killed since the Maoists began their insurgency in the late 1960s in a town called Naxalbari in West Bengal.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has called the rebels the biggest challenge to the country's internal security. (ANI)