Maoist email jolts Ranchi

Maoist email jolts Ranchi

OUR BUREAU

Sudhir Mahto Patna/Ranchi, April 9: Jharkhand deputy chief minister Sudhir Mahto has received a threat email, apparently from the Maoists, but police can’t track it down because they have no cyber cell. Till now, the rebels have been known to use only media releases, their own website or mouthpiece People’s March to issue threats. So Mahto wants the source and authenticity of the email probed. The message, issued in the name of Communist Party of India (Maoist) spokesman Sukhdev, threatens the minister with the same fate as his Jharkhand Mukti Morcha colleague Sunil Mahto if he doesn’t stop criticising the rebels for killing the Jamshedpur MP. It also warns him against backing the corporate houses that want to set up industries in the state. The sender has also emailed the message to newspapers in Ranchi, but some media offices in Patna have received it in the form of a letter, left in an envelope. “This is the first instance when the Maoists have issued a threat to a leader in an email. It’s very difficult to ascertain the genuineness of the letter,” a senior police officer said. A cyber cell manned by software-savvy personnel could have tracked the email down to a cyber café or a personal computer, he added. The message asks the deputy chief minister to desist from “letting loose a barrage of lies” against the rebels, “cooked up at the diktat of corporate houses and the state’s landed gentry”. It accuses him of “glorifying” the “notorious” Sunil Mahto, who was gunned down as he watched a football match at a Ghatshila village on March 4. “Can you explain how Sunil, born in a middle peasant family, turned into a karodpati (millionaire) as your party leader,” asks the message, issued allegedly on behalf of the Maoists’ Bengal-Jharkhand-Orissa regional committee. The minister was asked to read the writing on the wall. “Don’t think the Jharkhandis will spare the notorious high priests of the JMM who only know how best to amass fortunes by all dishonest means, being a part of the exploitative system controlled by the Tatas, Jindals, Mittals, various MNCs and feudal landlords.” The sender tells the deputy chief minister that he is traversing the same path as Sunil was before his “execution”. “From 2003, whenever Sunil Mahto set foot on East Singhbhum, he chose to provoke the masses against us, against our movement, for an exploitation-free Jharkhand.” Former Jharkhand police chief V.D. Ram had taken the initiative to set up a cyber cell about a year ago. But just when things were taking shape, he was transferred and the plan went into the freezer. Additional director-general of police R.C. Kaithal said: “We are planning to set up a cell and have a law to deal with such crimes.” The Telegraph