The Andhra Pradesh police arrested a top Maoist leader in the temple town of Bhadrachalam in the early hours of Tuesday.

Announcing the arrest at a media conference at Khammam Tuesday night, District Superintendent of Police R K Meena said that the arrested leader Narayan Sanyal alias Naveen Prasad alias Bijoy Dada was incharge of Orissa and Chattisgarh units of the Communist Party of India-Maoist.

The 68-year-old Naveen is a contemporary of Naxalite movement founder late Charu Mazumdar. On a tip-off, Khammam district police picked up him at Bhadrachalam bus station at 3.30 am where he was supposed to meet CPI-M politburo member and former secretary of AP state committee Ramakrishna.

The police recovered one 9 mm pistol, six live rounds of ammunition, two walkie-talkie (wireless) sets and party literature from him.

The SP said that Naveen was involved in 21 major offences, including the conspiracy behind the landmine attack on the car of former AP chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu on October 1, 2003, at Alipiri near Tirupati town.

Naveen was produced in the court at Kothagudem and was sent for judicial remand for 14 days. He is being shifted to the Central jail at Warangal.