Maoist leader Samrat Chakrabarty was taken into custody by the National Investigation Agency (NIA Guwahati )’s division on Monday in Sodepur, close to Calcutta.

According to reports, Samrat is a member of the CPI (Maoists) state committee and was sought after in an Assam case. After receiving information that the Maoist leader was camped out somewhere in the Nadia area, a Guwahati-based NIA team has been attempting to locate Samrat, also known as Nirman, for the past few days.

Reportedly over the last two days, Samrat’s location kept changing from Nadia to North 24-Parganas, as indicated by the cell phone tower. He would also frequently turn off his cell phone, making it much harder to track him down.

He was apprehended by NIA on Monday after they located him in a godown on the Kalyani Expressway, which runs from Kalyani in Nadia to Birati in North 24 Parganas. Samrat has continued to create a network while posing as labor in the godown.

He moved from Bengal to Assam in 2016 before deciding to come back and seek refuge in several areas of Nadia and North 24-Parganas.

As per a senior Bengal police officer, Samrat allegedly participated in Maoist activities during the state’s final years of Left Front government, primarily by training up-and-coming recruits for an armed uprising. A state’s intelligence division stated, “Samrat was given the task of spreading the network in numerous districts, including Calcutta, Nadia, Murshidabad, and Malda, in 2011.”

He moved his base to Assam five years later with the intention of expanding the network, notably in the tea gardens of the northeastern regions. Assam’s Cachar, Karimganj, Dibrugarh, and Dhubri districts are among the areas under Samrat’s influence. Samrat previously collaborated with Arun Kumar Bhattacharjee, another head of the outlawed group who was later detained. Samrat, according to the police, returned to Calcutta early this year and went into hiding.

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