A Kolkata businessman has received an extortion letter demanding Rs 50 lakhs in the name of ‘funding’ a Maoist Organisation. The recipient of the letter Jayanta Chowdhury runs a gold jewellery shop in Old China Bazar Street of Kolkata’s Burra Bazar area. Chowdhury has filed a complaint at Burrabazar Police Station.

The letter has been signed by a person named Sameer Mondal, who has instructed Chowdhury to deposit the amount at the address of Gopikanta Banerjee alias Mukul, who is a resident of Hadipur Colony of Deganga in North 24 Parganas district.

Businessman warned against filing police complaint

The jewellery businessman has also been warned in the letter that if he fails to deposit the money at the given address, the organisation will be forced to ‘take action’ against him. He has also been warned against filing a police complaint. The letter mentions that even if Chowdhury files a complaint, the police will not be able to save him.

Burrabazar Police is investigating the letter and trying to find whether it was really written by any Maoist organisation or just a hoax.

Maoist leader’s body found in Chhattisgarh

The dead body of a high-ranking Naxal leader was recovered on Friday, along with an AK-47 rifle, explosives and other arms and ammunition in Chhattisgarh’s Bijapur district. As per preliminary identification, the body belongs to Bhaskar Rao alias Mailarapu Adellu a member of the Telangana State Committee of the CPI (Maoist) outfit, who was killed during an encounter as part of the ongoing anti-Naxal operation.

Bhaskar, a resident of Adilabad district in Telangana, was the Secretary of the Mancherial-Komarambheem (MKB) division of the Telangana State Committee of the CPI (Maoist) outfit. He was also a member of the Special Zonal Committee (SZC) of the Telangana State Committee and had a reward of Rs 45 lakh on him.