Kerala police nab Maoist top brass Roopesh

KOCHI: The Maoists in Kerala have suffered a huge setback with the arrest of their top leader Roopesh, his wife Shina and three others from Coimbatore on Monday.

A joint team of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu police nabbed them,  according to the information available. DGP K.S. Balsubramanian has confirmed the news but said that an official intimation about the arrest was  yet to be received from Coimbatore.

“We have been told informally about the arrest of these people in a joint operation by the Andhra and Tamil Nadu police. The official confirmation will take some time as the formalities connected with the arrest have to be completed,”  he said.

Apart from Roopesh and Shina, the other person arrested has been identified as Anoop from Kerala while  two others are believed to be from Tamil Nadu.

The police teams from Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka had intensified their operations against the Maoists following the CPI-Maoist declaring the tri-junction bordering these three states in the Western Ghats as the new war zone last year.

A series of violent actions by the Maoists in Kerala in the past few months had also led to  increased vigil by the police in the state.  

Roopesh has been identified as one of the key persons behind the revival of Maoist activity in the state and launching the operations of the outlawed CPI-Maoist in Kerala. 

Roopesh, who was associated with the CPI-ML Janashakthi group, was in underground for more than a decade following his ties  with the erstwhile People’s War Group and later the CPI (Maoist).

His wife Shina had also gone underground following the arrest of Malliraja Reddy and his associate Suguna from Angamaly in Kerala in 2007. The arrest of Reddy had revealed that Roopesh was instrumental in arranging shelter for him.