Five calls from five places. So, who is the real Kisenji?
Every journalist wants a byte from Koteshwar Rao alias Kisenji and the underground Maoist leader is only too happy to oblige, over phone.
Every journalist wants a byte from Koteshwar Rao alias Kisenji and the underground Maoist leader is only too happy to oblige, over phone. That should have made it easy for the police to track him down. Instead, they found out that the ‘Kisenji’ speaking live to a vernacular news channel is not the same as the one who talked to another channel 30 minutes later.
In fact, the police have found five dummy Kisenjis operating from different jungle locations in West Bengal and adjacent Jharkhand using different mobile telephones and different SIM cards at different times.
Sophisticated voice and tone examination of the recorded interviews confirmed Kisenji has at least five dummies. But for close scrutiny by the police, the interviews are difficult to distinguish, thanks to a sustained practice and uniform style of speaking Hindi, English or Bengali with a distinct Telegu accent. Senior CID officials said it is difficult for the common man to differentiate between the different voices and accents of these dummy Kisenjis.
“The very fine differences have been traced through sophisticated voice examination, but we are not sure which one is the real Kisenji,” he said. Initially, they tried to nab Kisenji by tracking the tower locations but failed. “We neither have any recent picture of Kisenji nor any specific information about what he looks like. So, we tried to track the mobile towers. But, it did not work. There were times when we felt we had found our man, but we realised there were these dummy Kisenjis,” the CID official said.
Now, the CID is not even sure if the man who faced the media when Sankrail station-in-charge Atindranath Dutta was released was the real Kisenji. In a lighter vein, the official said the Maoists were getting back at them for their arrest of Maoist-backed PCPA leader Chatradhar Mahato by decoying as journalists. “The Kisenjis are paying us back in the same coin and hoodwinking us using the media,” he said.
In fact, the police have found five dummy Kisenjis operating from different jungle locations in West Bengal and adjacent Jharkhand using different mobile telephones and different SIM cards at different times.
Sophisticated voice and tone examination of the recorded interviews confirmed Kisenji has at least five dummies. But for close scrutiny by the police, the interviews are difficult to distinguish, thanks to a sustained practice and uniform style of speaking Hindi, English or Bengali with a distinct Telegu accent. Senior CID officials said it is difficult for the common man to differentiate between the different voices and accents of these dummy Kisenjis.
“The very fine differences have been traced through sophisticated voice examination, but we are not sure which one is the real Kisenji,” he said. Initially, they tried to nab Kisenji by tracking the tower locations but failed. “We neither have any recent picture of Kisenji nor any specific information about what he looks like. So, we tried to track the mobile towers. But, it did not work. There were times when we felt we had found our man, but we realised there were these dummy Kisenjis,” the CID official said.
Now, the CID is not even sure if the man who faced the media when Sankrail station-in-charge Atindranath Dutta was released was the real Kisenji. In a lighter vein, the official said the Maoists were getting back at them for their arrest of Maoist-backed PCPA leader Chatradhar Mahato by decoying as journalists. “The Kisenjis are paying us back in the same coin and hoodwinking us using the media,” he said.