Wanted in 37 cases, Maoist Prayag Manjhi killed in Jharkhand was ‘big headache' for security forces

The Print

21-04-2025

In the Lugu hills in the Lalpania area of Bokaro district, Vivek, along with two other top Maoist leaders and five others, died in an exchange of fire with a joint team of the CRPF Commando Battalion for Resolute Action (CoBRA) and the Jharkhand Jaguar. The operation started early Monday morning and lasted for roughly two hours, ending in arguably the biggest catch for the forces in the state.
Jharkhand Police recall that Vivek da was the 'biggest' Maoist commander in the state and 'successor' to Communist Party of India (Maoist) politburo member Prashant Bose alias Kishan da, arrested in November 2021.
New Delhi: An ideologically strong commander among the Maoists, Prayag Manjhi, commonly known as Vivek da, kept the entirety of Jharkhand on its toes and ruled the jungles in the Parasnath area at the peak of the Naxal movement in the state, senior officers say, while describing the top Maoist leader killed Monday.
Responding to the operation, Home Minister Amit Shah reiterated his objective to eliminate Naxalism from the country. 'Our march to eliminate Naxalism continues unabated. Today, security forces achieved another significant success in the ongoing operation to uproot Naxalism,' the Home Minister said in an X post while announcing the death of eight Maoists, including Vivek, who carried a reward of Rs one crore on his head.
Hindi Language graduate to Maoist
Born in a tribal family in the Dalbudha village of Dhanbad to father Charku Manjhi and mother Badki Manjhiyain, Vivek graduated from Katras College. According to details that security agencies have on him, Vivek had graduated in Hindi Language by 1988.
While the current crop of police personnel could not pinpoint the year he joined the Naxals, quite a few of them recall having read about him due to the number of attacks he carried out in the state.
He married a Special Area Committee member of the CPI(Maoist), Jaya Di alias Chintha Di, who was the president of Nari Mukti Sangh (NMS), an alleged frontal organisation of the CPI(Maoist), according to police records. She was arrested in 2024.
Senior officers who tracked the rise and fall of the Naxal movement in Jharkhand say that nearly all attacks by the Maoists in the Parasnath jungles could be traced to Vivek.
'[For the forces], he [Vivek] had been a big headache. He was behind many attacks on the police stations and posts in the Dhanbad, Giridih, Bokaro and Koderma districts. He was behind nearly all the attacks in the Parasnath belt, making it impenetrable for the forces,' a senior police officer, privy to Vivek's rise to the Maoist commander post, tells ThePrint.
According to Jharkhand Police, there had been 37 cases, naming Vivek as the prime accused. However, considering his command over the Maoist cadre, he was possibly behind many more cases, say 100, officers claim.
Officials do not rule out his hand in high-profile cases—the killing of ex-chief minister of Jharkhand Babu Lal Marandi's younger son and an attack on the CISF camp in 2007.
In the case of Marandi's son, a group of Maoists indiscriminately fired on a cultural gathering at Chilodih village in Koderma, leaving 20 people, including Anup Marandi, dead in October 2007. Months earlier, a group of nearly 400 Maoists had attacked a CISF camp, leaving six officers dead.
Two years before that, Maoists allegedly attacked a home guard training centre in Giridih town, leaving five persons, including four home guards, dead in 2005. The Bokaro district police booked Vivek in August 2015 for allegedly putting 24 trucks from the firm of Ravindra Pandey, then-MP from BJP in Giridih, on fire.
Sources aware of the development say Vivek's stature within the Maoist cadre rose further after Kisan da was jailed in 2021.
However, sources also claim, Vivek had a limited role and influence as CPI(Maoist) Central Committee member, not at par with other senior CCMs.
'He was the biggest Maoist cadre in the state, but his influence was too limited, for a CCM. He was [the] operations man in Jharkhand, whose job was to extort money from people in the coal field business and contractor ships,' a source aware of his profile tells ThePrint
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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