Tuesday, November 15 2005 10:03 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Jehanabad: Armed naxals freed 389 inmates of the district prison here and killed four persons in their daring storming operation on Sunday night (Nov 13, 2005) and gunned down nine kidnapped members of Ranvir Sena, an outlawed militia of upper caste landlords, yesterday (Nov 14, 2005) triggering protests from the relatives.

Alarmed over the incident, the Centre rushed 1,000 central paramilitary personnel and decided to air drop troops in Bihar even as alert was sounded in naxal-affected districts of Maharashtra, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand.

Disrict Magistrate Rana Avadhesh put the number of jail escapees from the prison at 341 of whom three were nabbed. However, IG (Prisons) A B Prasad said 389 inmates were missing of whom six were recaptured.

He said dreaded naxalite leaders Ajay Kanu and Murali, who were lodged in the jail and plotted on Sunday night's operation, escaped.

While a sentry, a warder and Ranvir Sena leader Bade Sharma were shot dead at the jail, a constable perished in the gunbattle with the 1,000-strong naxalites who had also raided the police lines.

An unspecified number of imprisoned Ranvir Sena men were taken away from the jail by the Communist Party of India (Maoist) armed cadres.

Avadhesh told reporters that bodies of three believed to be abducted members of Ranvir Sena, locked in a feud with naxalites for over a decade, were recovered from the railway track near the jail. Five other Sena men were believed to have been killed at Belagang in adjoining Gaya district, he said.

The body of a prominent Ranvir Sena activist Visweshwar Rai was found at Pinjora village in Jehanabad district this evening, Prasad said.

The District Magistrate said there were 685 prisoners at the time of the attack. Many of the extremists who escaped were booked under the Crime Control Act and some under TADA, he added.

IG (Central Zone) A S Nimbran, who is camping here, said, "Our first priority is to rescue the Ranvir Sena men who have been kidnapped."

The police regained control of the prison nearly 15 hours after the attack with paramilitary forces and commandos deployed on the parapet of the jail.

Prasad suspended the Assistant Jailor Anil Kumar for dereliction of duty and announced a compensation of Rs 10 lakh to the next of kin of the slain warder.

Describing the situation as 'fully under control,' the district magistrate said central para-military forces, the Special Task Force and district armed police, were raiding different parts of the district.

Hundreds of men, women and children assembled on the jail with its gates wide open. Angry relatives of prisoners shouted slogans against the authorities with a sympathiser of the 'Ranvir Sena' pouncing on the District Magistrate and trying to strangle him.

Chaos prevailed in the area after Avadhesh ordered police to charge with batons to clear the premises of outsiders in which a few journalists were injured and cameras of some TV news channels smashed.

Chief Secretary G S Kang and Home Secretary H C Sirohi admitted in Patna that intelligence inputs had been received about a possible attack on police stations which were put on alert. But what clearly took the authorities by surprise was the scale of the attack by the naxalites.