Assam Police arrest Dantewada massacre prime suspect

Guwahati, Jan 12 (ANI): Assam Police arrested a Maoist named Piyush Kranti Acharya, who is a prime suspect in the April 2010 Dantewada massacre in which 76 security personnel were killed, here on Wednesday.

Acharya, however, denied all allegations after his arrest.

In hesitant and slurred tones, he told reporters that he had been suffering various illnesses and had just come to Assam.

"I fell ill in Chhattisgarh; I had suffered from Alzheimer's disease, hallucinations and paedophilia. I have not been well for three days. I just came to Assam," said Acharya.

He further claimed that the police officials were wrongly informed about Maoists.

"Maoists have only one group. You people do not have any knowledge and are all talking rubbish," he said.

The massacre of 76 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) on April 6, 2010, by around 500 Maoists at Dantewada in Bastar region brought into focus the growing influence of Naxals and triggered a debate at the national level on the preparedness of the country's security agencies to deal with them, prompting Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh to term Maoism as the gravest internal security threat to the country. (ANI)