Once dreaded Maoist commander now reading Gita in jail

Prashant Bose aka Kishan Da, the once dreaded Maoist commander, is now spending his time at the Birsa Munda Jail in Ranchi reading Bhagavad Gita.

Bose, who carried a reward of Rs 1 crore on his head, was arrested by the police along with his wife Sheela Marandi from near a toll plaza in Jharkhand in November 2021.

Jail sources said that he got an English version of Bhagavad Gita issued in his name twice in the last three months. Suffering from various age-related ailments -- he is believed to be above 80 now -- Bose cannot not even walk on his own. His wife Sheela is also lodged in the same jail, whom he meets once a week.

Bose, wanted in several criminal cases, was said to be among the top rung leaders in the hierarchy of the rebel outfit, who used to head the Maoist Communist Centre of India (MCCI) before it merged with the CPI-ML (People's War) to form the CPI (Maoist) in 2004.

As per police sources, he was the commander of Maoist activities in Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhatisgarh, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra.

A native of West Bengal, Bose was arrested in 1974 but was released in 1978. Since then, he was absconding until his arrest in 2021.

After his arrest, Bose had confessed that he was involved in the Bara massacre of 1992, when the Maoist Communist Centre of India, now the CPI (Maoist), killed 40 Bhumihars at Bara village in Bihar's Gaya district.

He was also reportedly involved in the Jheeram Ghati carnage of 2013, when Maoist insurgents had attacked a convoy of Congress leaders in Chhattisgarh's Sukma district, leaving 27 dead, including former state minister Mahendra Karma, Chhattisgarh Congress chief Nand Kumar Patel, and senior party leader Vidya Charan Shukla, who died in the hospital later.

His wife Sheela is one of the two women to ever make it to the central committee of the CPI (Maoist), its highest decision-making body.