India: Naxal terrorist woman with Rs 5 lakh bounty held in C'garh

Dantewada, May 18 (PTI) A 26-year-old naxal, carrying Rs five lakh reward for her alleged involvement in various violent incidents, Saturday surrendered in Chhattisgarh's Dantewada district, police said.

The cadre, Nande Mandavi alias Lali, is a member of the Kerlapal Area Committee of Maoists, said Dantewada SP Abhishek Pallava.

Police had input that she would be visiting Dantewada district hospital for treatment and proceeded to arrest her, he said.

After police reached the hospital, Mandavi herself contacted her former colleague Sundari Stam--who had quit the outlawed CPI (Maoist) in 2017 and now inducted as a commando in the recently raised women platoon of District Reserve Guard (DRG)--expressing her willingness to join the mainstream, the SP said.

After turning herself in before police, Mandavi said she was frustrated with the "hollow" ideology of Maoists and wanted to join the woman platoon 'Danteshwari Ladake' to free her land from the menace of Maoist violence, Pallava said.

Mandavi had joined the banned outfit in 2004 as a member of the Chetna Natya Mandli (CNM), the cultural wing of Maoists, in Pamed area committee where she worked till 2011.

In 2012, Mandavi was promoted as Kerlapal area committee member in Sukma, the SP said.

She was involved in the deadly Kasalpad attack in Chintagufa area of Sukma in 2014 in which 14 CRPF troopers were killed, and in four other major Maoist incidents in south Bastar, he added.