Vishakapatnam, January 22: Lifting the veil of secrecy over the whereabouts of top Maoist leader Ramakrishna alias RK, police say they have information that RK is hiding in the Andhra-Odisha-Chhattisgarh (AOC) border area and that they have intensified combing operations to catch the most wanted Maoist top gun since yesterday.
RK, the CPI (Maoist) central committee member and AOB chief, had escaped into the ‘safe zone’ after coming within a close range of the police dragnet when he came to meet his wife in the Narayanapatna forest block of Odisha in November last.
Police suspect that RK is moving in the Andhra-Odisha-Chhattisgarh border area to motivate the squads to enforce Bharat Bandh on February 7 called by the Maoists to protest against the hike in petroleum prices by the central government.
Police have intensified combing of all Maoist strongholds in the Andhra-Odisha border area being well aware that the extremists have been waiting for a chance to attack them to avenge the killing of four of their comrades in a recent encounter in the Visakhapatnam Agency.
They are also alert to the idea that the Maoists may resort to Chhattisgarh-style attack in the AOB to make known their presence in the area. According to sources, police are using helicopters and sniper dogs to catch the Maoist top gun who had given them the slip in the past to escape into the Narayanapatna forest block of Odisha.
–Agencies