Title - Kishenji's close aide held in Ranchi

Ramdas Ganju, alias Nandu, an elusive operative of the banned CPI (Maoist), was arrested at the Ranchi railway station on Sunday. Ramdas was a close aide of Kishenji, rebel leader killed in an encounter in West Bengal in November last, Senior Superintendent of Police Saket Kumar Singh said here on Monday. “We arrested him when he was trying to get on a train for Lohardaga.” A postgraduate, Ramdas has been a member of the Bihar-Jharkhand-Odisha-Chhattisgarh regional committee since 2008. He was in charge of the Palamu, Latehar and Garwar areas for the CPI (Maoist). A native of Belari in Bihar's Banka district, he joined the extremists in 2003 as a member in the Banka-Jamui Zonal committee. In 2003, he was involved in a landmine explosion in Jamui, in which a police officer was killed, the police said. “In 2005, he was involved in the kidnapping and murder of a panchayat chief in the Ghero area,” Mr. Singh said. He destroyed a school building at Solo village. In 2007, he destroyed an Irrigation Department building and a school in the Bharhat area. He was accused of killing villagers of Kosi and destroying a school building in the Sonacharka area in 2010. The police said Ramdas could provide them vital information on Maoist plans as he was a member of a sub-committee for policy advisors.