Operations against Maoists entered a "critical phase" with security forces reaching Kantapahari, the hub of the naxal-backed tribal agitation.
Operations against Maoists in West Midnapore district today entered a "critical phase" with security forces reaching Kantapahari, the hub of the naxal-backed tribal agitation, without meeting any resistance from the ultras.
Around 1600 security personnel accompanied by the men of the CoBRA reached Kantapahari from both Lalgarh and Ramgarh ends.
DIG CID (Special Operations Group) Siddhinath Gupta said, "We did not meet with any resistance. We are halting here for the time being. The operation is now in a critical phase."
The distance between Lalgarh and Kantapahari in the south and the Ramgarh to Kantapahari in the north is roughly five to six kilometers each.
The forces, comprising men of the CRPF, BSF, State Armed Police and India Reserve Battalion, set out at around 7:00 am from Lalgarh, which was secured on June 19 in the first stage of the operations, and Ramgarh, which was taken over last Saturday.
The forces from Lalgarh which made a reconnaissance of Amdanga, two km away on Saturday, then swiftly marched to Kantapahari.
A helicopter was in the air to spot the Maoists.
Around 180 men of the CoBRA forces, who were driven in from Kharagpur, were accompanying the central forces and state police to sanitise areas.
Kantapahari, besides the surrounding villages of Boropelia, Chottopelia and Dalilpur Chowk, were the places where the tribals backed by Maoists had launched their agitation in protest against police atrocities in November last year.
Bodopelia is the home village of Convenor of the Peoples Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCPA), Chhatradhar Mahato, whom the security forces were looking for.
The PCPA had started the agitation to protest police raids on their homes after chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and two then union ministers, Ramvilas Paswan and Jitindra Prasad narrowly escaped a landmine blast at Salboni by Maoists in the district on November two last year.
The forces had secured Ramgarh, a village which held a large concentration of Maoists, in the second phase of the operations on Saturday. The operations by the security forces had been launched first on June 19, when a human shield of tribals was demolished swiftly at Pirakata.
A day later, the security forces marched into Lalgarh police station, which had been under siege from November last year.
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