IMPHAL, May 31: A self-styled captain of the proscribed RPF/PLA, who was nabbed by the sleuths of NIA from Gopalpur, Berhampur district of Oddisa have been remanded to the investigating agency’s custody for seven days, sources said.
Asem Ibotombi alias Angou, who was apprehended in a joint operation launched by NIA and Gopalpur police on May 29, was granted for a five-day transit remand to the custody of NIA after being produced before a local court in Gopalpur.
Later, the sleuths of NIA brought him to Guwahati and produced before the Special Court of the investigating agency there yesterday and the court remanded him to the NIA custody for seven days, the sources added.
Ibotombi is also the chief of external affairs of RPF/PLA, the sources said, adding that he had been to Myanmar for 15 days and returned to India on May 28. He joined the militant outfit in 1993 and that his wife named Shantibala, a resident of Uripok in Imphal West is now working with Zoological Survey of India, Gopalpur as a scientist since two years.
The couple also has a four-year-old daughter. Ibotombi was arrested after the NIA registered a case against him in 2011 in Guwahati.
Mobile phone handsets with sim cards, one laptop, ATM cards, pen drives, memory cards and one hard disc were seized from his possession.
The RPF/PLA captain was arrested by the sleuths of NIA from Gopalpur which is a neighbouring area of Maoist-infested Ganjam, Gajapati and Kandhamal districts at a time when the investigating agency is framing chargesheets against another three cadres of PLA.
NIA is investigating on whether Ibotombi has link with Maoists, the sources added.
