Maoist courier held with fabric for rebels

The Dantewada police have arrested a person who was allegedly carrying fabric to be used for uniforms of the Maoists. Around 220 metre of Raymond fabric was seized from Pukhraj Chandak, a resident of Geedam in Dantewada, yesterday.

According to Dantewada SP Kam Lochan Kashyap, Chandak had taken an order from a Darbha-based Maoist Deva, member of the Darbha Division Committee of CPI (Maoist). “Pukhraj brought this cloth from Ahmedabad and was going in his vehicle to deliver it to Deva when he was arrested,” Kashyap said.

Chandak had been acting as a Maoist courier and had earlier supplied them medicines, ration, uniforms and other material, said the police.

This is the not the first instance that quality fabric was seized by the state police that was allegedly meant for the uniforms of Maoists. In 2007, two Bilaspur-based top cloth merchants were arrested from whom the then spokesperson of the Dandakaranya Special Zonal Committee had purchased a large quantity of cloth, which was subsequently stitched into uniforms by a Raipur-based tailor. While the cloth traders had admitted to selling the fabric, they claimed ignorance about its end use.

Maoists also have tailoring units in Bastar where special units of guerrillas stitch uniforms for their comrades. Considering that Bastar has at least 6000 armed cadres, these units almost regularly stitch uniforms.

This correspondent earlier met one such Maoist couple, Kanker-based Naresh and Preeti, who never participated in any ambush as their chief task was to stitch uniforms. Since they live an extremely tough life in forests, they pointed out, their leaders often provide them quality fabric to ensure that the uniforms last longer.

Source:: Indian Express