18 Maoists surrender in Sheohar

PATNA: Altogether 18 Maoists, including a woman, surrendered before Sheohar administration in the presence of 15,000 civilians at Belwa Ghat on the banks of the Bagmati on Saturday.
Sheohar SP Prakash Nath Mishra said the surrendered Maoists were hardcore members of the rebel group from the times of Marxist Coordination Committee (MCC), which has now merged with CPI (Maoist). All of them surrendered without any firearms.
"The Maoists were not arrested as they were already granted bail by local courts. They furnished the bail papers at the time of surrender. They would, however, be under our surveillance," Mishra said.
Sheohar, around 250km north of Patna, has been badly affected by Maoism. The SP said most of the Maoists, who surrendered on Saturday, were accused in multiple cases.
"We have been pursuing all Maoists in Sheohar to come to the mainstream for the past six months. It is due to our efforts that crime figures in Sheohar have come down by almost 60%. Today's surrender programme is one of the milestones of the district administration," Mishra said.
According to sources, the first reported incident of Maoist violence in Sheohar happened on June 24, 2001. Maoists had looted five police rifles and over 100 live cartridges from jawans of Bihar home guards deputed at Deokuli police outpost.
In October 2010, four Special Auxiliary Police (SAP) personnel and two police inspectors were killed in a landmine explosion near Shyampur Batanha police station in the district, just a few days ahead of the second phase of assembly elections in the state.
"We have been organising various programmes for rehabilitation of Maoists. Today's surrender programme was also organised on the theme of freeing Sheohar from Maoists, crime and poverty. Our motive is to ensure socio-economic upliftment of Maoists after their surrender, so that they do not take up arms again," said Mishra.