Combing continues for elusive Maoists

Visakhapatnam: Suspense continues over the whereabouts of Maoists central committee member Akkiraju Haragopal alias Ramakrishna alias RK and top Maoist leader Gajarla Ravi alias Uday alias Ganesh. Security personnel and Maoists have unable to trace either RK or Ravi after the gun battles on Monday and Tuesday in which 28 Maoists were killed in Odisha’s Malkangiri district.

Police believes that RK and Ravi managed to escape from the spot with the support of other Maoists and might have taken shelter in the tribal hamlets along the Andhra-Odisha border. However, leaders of various organisations are claiming that RK and Ravi were not present at the spot. Suspecting that RK and Ravi and some injured Maoists were hiding near the encounter site or in hamlets in the AOB, the AP police has intensified combing operations in the region.

Four to five companies of armed police personnel were airlifted to AOB by helicopters from Paderu in Vizag Agency and other areas on Wednesday morning. Sources said that choppers have been flying sorties over AOB with top officials and security forces with snipers. The cops are also checking with registered medical practitioners along the AOB to find out whether any injured Maoist had come to them for treatment.

Quoting party sources, president of Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Committee, Visakhapatnam unit, T. Sreerama Murthy said RK, Ravi, Ramachandra Reddy alias Chalapati and his wife Arunu had not visited Bejangiwada on October 23. Sources said representatives of 18 human rights organisations from different parts of the co-untry led by Committee for Democratic Rights Organisation would visit the encounter site and nearby villages on October 29 and October 30 to find the facts of the incident.

7 bodies handed over to relatives:

After two hours of high drama and heated arguments, the Malkangiri district police handed over bodies of seven out of the 28 Maoists killed in Monday’s encounter to their family members in Malkangiri on Wednesday. The bodies included that of Munna, son of central committee member Ramakrishna alias R.K, Bakuru Venkata Ramana alias Ganesh, Chamella Krishna alias Daya and four others. More bodies would be returned on Thursday, the Odisha police said.

Of the 28 dead, about 20 have been identified so far. Malkangiri SP Mitrabhanu Mohapatra initially denied permission to the family members to identify the bodies physically. Instead, he told the families to identify them by their photographs. After heated arguments, the police finally allowed the family members for physical identification of the bodies. The process for handing over the bodies in the presence of a magistrate began after family members of 18 slain rebels protested in Malkangiri on Wednesday morning.

Around 40 people, including 15 women, led by revolutionary poet Var-avara Rao and Padma Kumari, secretary of the Mrutula Bandhu Mitrala Sangham, reac-hed the district police headquarters and met Malkangiri superintendent of police Mitra-bhanu Mohapatra. They submitted papers regarding identification of slain rebels and their relationship with them. They also raised slogans against the police and alleged that they had killed them in cold blood.

Odisha inspector-general (operations) R.P. Koche and deputy ins-pector-general (south-West) S. Saini, who are camping in Malkangiri, held a closed-door meeting with local SP Mitrabhanu Mohapatra and Visakhapatnam SP Rahul Dev Sharma in the evening. Sources said the top cops discussed steps to counter possible backlash by the rebels to avenge the killing. Home secretary Asit Tripathy told reporters in Bhubaneswar that a high alert had been sounded in Malkangiri, Koraput, Nowrangpur, Rayagada, Kalahandi and Nuapada district in view of the apprehension of possible backlash by the Maoists.