3,000 elite troops, ₹1 crore reward, and a nudge from his family| India News
Deep inside the dense Saranda forests in Jharkhand, over 3,000 CRPF CoBRA commandos from Chhattisgarh have been deployed as part of a high-stakes hunt for the last active CPI (Maoist) Central Committee member, Misir Besra. And as the elite troops turn the heat on one of the country’s most wanted men, they have found support from an unlikely corner — his surviving family, estranged, but desperate to see him live. Even as elite commandos of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) comb the forests, a more intimate appeal is being made from within Besra’s family. (PTI/ Representative) In his late 60s, Besra, who carries a reward of ₹1 crore and comparable bounties in nearby states, is holed up in the forest along with a clutch of loyal troops. His family has made a final appeal routed through the government, calling on him to lay down arms. Security forces said Besra, known by the aliases Bhaskar, Sunil, Sunirmal, and Vivek, refuses to surrender, even as most other senior Maoist leaders have either laid down arms or …
