The local wing of the Jharkhand-based dreaded extortionist outfit People’s Liberation Front of India (PLFI) suffered another blow with the arrest of 12 of its members in three simultaneous operations by Sundargarh district police on Saturday.
Cops claimed to have nabbed five members of the gang, responsible for the kidnap and murder of BJD leader and businessman Hardeep Singh at Kansbahal on July 7. They were caught in Kalodihi forest under Rajgangpur police limits. Three rifles, two pistols and 12 live bullets were seized from them.
IG (WR) Y K Jethwa and Sundargarh SP Sanjeev Arora told mediapersons that another gang member, Sahadev Katuar, and his under-age aide were nabbed from the bordering Tainda area of Hathibari police station in Nuagaon block after a brief exchange of fire.
The third raid in the areas under Birmitrapur police limits led to the arrest of four more PLFI members. Two pistols and two live bullets, one stolen motor-bike and other articles were recovered from them.
The IG claimed that one of the arrested, Bishu, was a hardened criminal who has at least four murder cases pending against him in Jharkhand. The outfit has been desperately seeking to spread its crime network in the district and recruiting jobless youths in the interior areas of Bisra, Hathibari, Birmitrapur, Raiboga and Rajgangpur police stations.
He said the sustained efforts of Sundargarh and Rourkela districts police, in tandem with their counterparts in Jharkhand, would soon neutralise the outfit that resorts to extreme actions to extort hefty amounts from businessmen.
Earlier, a day after Hardeep’s murder, the Rourkela police, led by SP Himanshu Lal, chased a group of PLFI members to a Jharkhand village and shot dead one and captured five others in an encounter.
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