The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has arrested Dinesh Gope, a self-styled supremo of the People’s Liberation Front of India (PLFI), a proscribed Naxal outfit of Jharkhand. The accused was involved in over 102 criminal cases and carried a reward of ₹30 lakh.
A case was registered against Gope by the NIA in a case relate to the seizure of ₹25.38 lakh demonetised notes from the PLFI operatives in 2016. An absconder for almost two decades, he was arrested in New Delhi.
According to the NIA investigations, criminal cases are registered against the accused in Jharkhand, Bihar and Odisha. Most of them relate to murders, abductions, threats, extortion, and raising funds for the PLFI, a militant Maoist outfit formed in 2007. It is a splinter group of the Communist Party of India (Maoist).
Initially, the Jharkhand Police had announced a reward of ₹25 lakh for providing information about Gope. Later, the NIA had also declared a reward of ₹5 lakh for leads on Gope.
On February 3, 2022, an encounter had taken place between a Gope-led PLFI squad and security personnel in the forest area under Gudri police station of West Singhbhum district of Jharkhand. Several rounds were fired in the encounter before the rebels sneaked into the forest.
Gope also managed to escape and had been shifting base since then to evade arrest. He had also been making efforts re-establish the PLFI’s stronghold in Jharkhand.
The accused used to extort money and execute attacks through his PLFI team members to terrorise businessmen, contractors and the public. He, along with his associates, was allegedly involved in depositing the demonetised currency at a petrol pump. The amount was to be later collected in valid currency notes through extortion.
The illegal money was then invested through banking channels and shell companies in the name of close associates and family members of the accused.
The case was initially registered on November 10, 2016 at the Bero police station in Ranchi, and re-registered by the NIA on January 19, 2018. The police had filed the first chargesheet against four persons on January 9, 2017.
Based on its findings, the NIA filed the first supplementary chargesheet against 11 accused, including Gope. The second additional chargesheet was submitted in July 2022 against five individuals and three private companies. The NIA had also attached 14 bank accounts and two cars, along with cash and immovable property worth over ₹1 crore.
Previously known as Jharkhand Liberation Tigers, the PLFI is allegedly responsible for hundreds of terror incidents in Jharkhand, including several murders using firearms. The outfit used to lure unemployed youth by providing them motorcycles, mobile phones and easy money and after imparting training, used to equip them with lethal weapons to carry out terror incidents, said the agency on Sunday.
Extortion had been the PLFI’s major source of income and it targets coal traders, railway contractors and various private entities involved in developmental projects in various districts of Jharkhand. “The naxal outfit had also formed alliances with different criminal gangs in order to spread their nefarious activities, and executed several incidents of murders and arson in Jharkhand,” it said.
The funds were also used to procure sophisticated weapons, including AK-47 and other rifles of foreign make.
It is alleged that Gope was part of a criminal conspiracy to channelise the extorted funds and would get them invested in shell companies like Palak Enterprises, Shiv Adi Shakti, Shiv Shakti Samridhi Infra Pvt. Ltd. and Bhavya Engicon, formed in partnership with the other PLFI associates and his family members. The extorted money was also being transferred from Jharkhand to other places through a network of “hawala” operators.
In July 2007, Masi Charan Purty, a renegade of the CPI-Maoist, along with several of his followers, had joined Gope in order to raise the PLFI as a Naxal outfit. Although Purty was subsequently arrested, the PLFI spread its activities under Gope’s command, the agency said.
