Female Maoist leader with 10 lakh bounty surrenders with arms at Lalbazar

Top CPI (Maoist) leader Shakuntala Mahato, alias Pushpa, surrendered to the Kolkata Police at their Lalbazar headquarters on Wednesday morning. Once considered the terror of the Saranda jungle, the high-ranking rebel turned herself in along with a firearm and 46 rounds of live ammunition. Standing with a bounty of Rs 1 million (10 lakh rupees) on her head, her surrender marks a significant breakthrough for the state intelligence apparatus and comes amid intense joint forces operations targeting the cross-border Maoist corridors.

Shakuntala's journey into left-wing extremism began at the tender age of ten in her native Mechua village, located under the Belpahari police station in Jhargram. Disillusioned with formal education after the fifth grade, she was recruited into the Naxalite network through its cultural wings before picking up assault weapons. Over a spanning two-decade career, she operated under multiple aliases—including Pari, Barsha, and her childhood name Lutun—eventually rising through the ranks to become a crucial member of the Maoist Bengal Brigade and a zonal committee leader. She collaborated closely with top central commanders, including the late leader Kishenji during the historic Lalgarh movement.

Her operational footprint expanded extensively across the interstate borders, covering sensitive zones such as the Parasnath Hills, Dalma, Ghatshila, and the dense Saranda forests of Jharkhand. In 2005, she solidified her position within the outlawed organization by marrying Area Commander Atul Mahato in the Tamar jungles. However, sustained pressure from the central government's anti-Maoist campaigns, alongside targeted tactical combing operations, progressively cornered the Bengal Brigade, severing their logistics and triggering an influx of high-profile arrests and neutralizations.