Tight security arrangements on Kishenji`s death anniversary

Security forces were on alert at West Bengal`s Jhargram and elsewhere one year after death of Maoist leader Koteswar Rao alias `Kishenji` in encounter at Jangalmahal area of West Midnapore with CRPF.

Jhargram (WB): Security forces were on alert here and elsewhere one year after the death of top Maoist leader Koteswar Rao alias `Kishenji` in an encounter at Burishol village in Jangalmahal area of West Midnapore with CRPF. "Traffic plied as usual as life was more or less normal in the Jhargram sub-division area though an undercurrent of tension prevailed.Special raid parties, each having 15-16 security personnel armed with assault rifles, were moving around in eight motorcycles, to thwart any subversive activity", a senior police officer said.

The forces kept special vigil in Belpahari, Binpur, Nayagram, Gopiballavpur, Lalgarh areas not far from the 65-km long Bengal-Jharkhand-Odisha inter-state borders, the officer said. The railways also made special security arrangements in the Kharagpur-Adra section which pass through Salboni, Goaltore and Kharagpur-Tatanagar section via Jhargram with GRPF personnel deployed in special camps at three places for quick movement, a senior railway official said. The GRPF, raised from RPF and GRP for security measures, has been kept at camps at Kharagpur, Manikpara and Sardiha, where the Jnaneswari Express derailment had taken place, while sniffer dogs were being used to check the spots. Fifty-eight year-old Molajula Koteswar Rao, better known as Kishenji, was killed in an encounter with forces on November 24, 2011 at Burishol forest. PTI