If we don’t get security for our lives and property, we won’t work in rural areas. — Ramsarek Ram, president, Special Branch unit, Jharkhand Policemen’s Association

All top officers are protected. We work in remote areas without security. This discrimination must end. — Special Branch S-I who declines to be named

Their demands are genuine. We are looking into it sympathetically. — B B Pradhan, IG (Special Branch)

The gruesome beheading of Special Branch Inspector Francis Induwar has magnified the trauma of 3,500-odd policemen working to gather intelligence in a backward, poorly connected state 20 of whose 24 districts are under Maoist influence.

Upon their lives and work is the constant, dark shadow of a man synonymous with Maoist terror in Jharkhand, especially in and around the area where Induwar was murdered. Several years and many alleged killings later, Kundan Pahan remains out of the police’s reach, running an unfettered reign of terror and extortion.

“In the six days that they had Induwar in their custody, the Pahan gang must have extracted a lot of information about intelligence personnel, their contacts and their work,” said a senior IPS officer who believes that the armed men who abducted and killed Induwar were led by Pahan. “We need to review the plusses and minuses of the police strategy and intelligence network,” the officer added.

According to police records, Pahan is based in the green hills and forests of Khunti, carved out of Ranchi to be a separate district in 2007. Khunti is the birthplace of Birsa Munda — the legendary folk hero who fought the Raj and agrarian exploiters, and died in prison at the age of 25 in 1900.

... contd.