Gadchiroli Police have started the process of auctioning properties of former zilla parishad president and Congress leader Bandopant Mallelwar and his brother Narendra,accused of supplying arms to Naxalites with five others,including a government doctor of Gadchiroli. The brothers have been declared proclaimed offenders. Police stopped ambulance of a government hospital near Bhamragarh in June and seized arms and ammunition meant for a Naxal dalam. Four persons in the vehicle were arrested but medical officer Ravindra Karpe and the Mallelwars disappeared. Police later raided the Nagpur house of Narendra and seized two letters written last year by Naxal leader Comrade Vikram,secretary of Chatgaon area committee of CPI (Maoist). The first letter calls Narendra Naru Seth. It seeks his appointment and requests him to come to the forest. The second letter addressed to Shriman Bandu Mallelwar says the party received development fund of Rs 35,000 and thanks him for it. We have declared Narendra a proclaimed offender. His properties will be auctioned if he does not appear before a court in Aheri before July 29, Superintendent of Police Suvez Haq said. The court will hear an anticipatory bail plea of Bandopant on July 19. If it is rejected,we will initiate the same process for him, Haq said. Karpe was denied bail on July 2,after which he approached the Nagpur bench of Bombay High Court and secured ad interim relief. The final hearing is Thursday. If his plea is rejected,we will arrest him, Haq said. The Mallelwar brothers have been accused of funding Naxals earlier too. In 2001,Rs 11 lakh was recovered from them on the basis of information provided by six Naxal sympathisers belonging to Chudial village in Dhanora tehsil. The sympathisers had told police the brothers had given Rs 15 lakh to Naxals, Haq said. Same year,a vehicle in which Bandopant was travelling was intercepted and Rs 6 lakh and a Naxal letter calling him to the forest recovered, he said. Haq said eight offences had been registered against Bandopant in Gadchiroli till date.
