The two arrested Northeast-based insurgents of the People Liberation Army (PLA) were in Delhi to plan setting up joint training camps of the PLA and CPI (Maoist) in Burma.
The code name of N. Dilip Singh was N. Wangba while self-styled lieutenant and Arun Kumar Singh Salam’s code name was Willow.
The insurgents reportedly were staying in a Delhi hotel using fake IDs. Singh had come from the Northeast while Salam came from Pune where ran a travel agency. “Salam was sent there with a specific task,” he said. Following the arrests, the Pune police raided Salam’s residence and seized a laptop and books.
Salam is a post-graduate with an interest in geopolitics. The police seized books on Maoist ideology, intelligence units and security forces, guerrilla warfare, ambush and counter-ambush, the Nepali Maoist movement and its implications, battle psychology, counter-insurgencies and proceedings of the PLA in coded language.
The police also said that in 2010 Salam met CPI (Maoist) politburo leader Kishenda and others in Jharkhand. In October 2008, the PLA and Maoists signed a joint declaration against the Indian government. It was signed by the secretary-general of the RPF (PLA’s political arm), S. Gunin, and Maoist leader “Alok”. Singh had joined the PLA’s armed wing in 1988 as a “sepoy” and was promoted to “captain” in 2009, while Singh joined the outfit in 1997 as a “sepoy” and in June 2011 became a “lieutenant”.