Three rebels led by a woman surrender

RANCHI: Under the leadership of one woman, Maoist Sonia Munda, three Maoist cadres - Hari Singh Munda, Lakhan Munda and Surjit Munda - surrendered before the police on Tuesday. At the age of 19, Sonia displayed remarkable leadership in convincing the Maoists to surrender.
Joining the outfit at the age of 12, the then minor girl was quick in taking her bosses into confidence, following which she was asked to monitor Chandil area (Ranchi district), an administrative division of CPI (Maoist).The female Maoist married another fellow Maoist and together, attacked several parties. She was wanted in six cases of arms and explosive act besides her involvement with security forces.
Sonia's husband is a sub-zonal commander of the CPI (Maoist). Her attempts to convince him to surrender proved futile. "A resident of Arki block of Khunti district ,Sonia expressed her desire to surrender,'' said Khunti SP Anish Gupta.
He added, "Our assurance of financial and social support after surrender (according to the surrender policy) made them confident about their decision to surrender."
"I knew them personally because all three of them belong to the Arki block. They shared the same disillusionment. Money drives senior leaders more than ideology. The money-minded leaders have made life difficult for us," Sonia told media persons.
Sonia also said sustained police operations had reduced mobility of the Maoists and also the money flow. "I realized that the path we were walking on would lead us nowhere," she said. According to state government surrender policy, Rs 2.5 lakh will be given to Sonia and Rs 1.5 lakh to each of the dasta members.
The Maoists who surrendered, Gupta said, were working together. The surrender of Hari is a big loss to the Red group because he was an expert in fixing broken guns.
Sukhram and Shivshankar Munda were involved in an encounter with former SSP Ranchi Prabhat Kumar in August 2015, in which one policeman was killed, and the SSP with one of his bodyguards sustained bullet injuries.