Alleged CPI(Maoist) activist Ravi Sarma has told police that the decision to behead Jharkhand Special Branch Inspector Francis Induwar was taken by the Bihar-Jharkhand committee of the outfit, and added that he was against it. “In the outfit, killing a weaponless person is not favoured. Even I was not in favour of his killing,” Sarma is on record as having told the police.

Sarma, an agricultural scientist who studied briefly for a doctorate degree at Delhi’s PUSA institute, and his wife Anuradha, allegedly the head of the CPI(Maoist)’s woman wing, Nari Mukti Sanghathan, were arrested on October 10.

The police claim to have also seized a book in Telugu from Sarma carrying chapters on military training and guerrilla warfare. According to them, this is clinching evidence of Sarma’s expertise in providing military training to Maoist cadres in Bihar-Jharkhand.

“It is now clear he is not only an expert at handling sophisticated weapons, but also trained CPI(Maoist) cadres in guerrilla warfare as chief of its military wing. We have also seized a magazine printed and published by the Nari Mukti Sanghathan,” a police official said.

Before he was sent on remand to jail, Sarma admitted that the decision to loot an ICICI branch of Rs 5 crore and behead Induwar was taken by the Bihar-Jharkhand wing of the CPI(Maoist).

He also admitted that corruption is prevalent in the outfit’s units at the zonal and sub-zonal level. “The amount collected as levy is not the same as that which is recorded and passed on to the party,” said Hazaribagh SP Pankaj Kamboj, who interrogated Sarma and Anuradha, quoting him.

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