When West Bengal Police kept in operation a mobile phone seized by Maoists from a kidnapped constable last year, it might have thought it did a smart thing and would be able to trace their underground leader Koteshwar Rao alias Kishenji through the SIM card. But it now appears that the government underestimated the rebels.
Maoists kept the number, 9734695789, alive but did not give police the chance to use it against them. And when P Chidambaram asked them to fax their 72-day ceasefire offer to 011-23093155, the number of the Union home ministry’s 24x7 control room, this week, they told the minister to call their spokesman Kishenji on the same number at 5 pm sharp on Thursday for peace talks.
The number is registered in the name of constable Shishir Kanti Nag, who was abducted by Maoists from Lalgarh in September 2009 to protest the arrest of Chhatradhar Mahato, leader of the People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities.
Maoists released Nag in a couple of days, but kept his phone, purchased from a dealer in Kharagpur (West Midnapore district).
Highly placed sources in West Bengal Police said the number was deliberately kept alive to track Maoists. However, the entire operation apparently failed, as, the sources said, Maoists rarely used the pre-paid card, although they kept topping it up at regular intervals. The top-ups were carried out at multiple small shops in various locations of West Midnapore.
The sources said some of the shops had been traced and intelligence officers were interrogating owners, but no headway had been made so far. They said Nag was also being questioned on the time he spent in Maoist custody.
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