Kerala: Toffee vendor-turned Maoist still at large

Kozhikode: Soman, 41, is a terror now to the police forces though he was a vendor of ginger toffees and later a journalist over two decades ago. He is the only remaining Maoist from the state who is still eluding the police net after Roopesh and Shyna, the Maoist couple, were arrested sometime ago. Soman was reportedly  in the Karulayi forests in Nilambur  when the two Maoist leaders were killed in an encounter last Thursday, according to police. Soman carries a reward of Rs 2 lakh on his head  and his picture also figures  among the wanted list of Maoists on the flex boards in all major entry points to Tamil Nadu from the state.  

From a street vendor in the early 1990s,  he shifted to newspaper publishing, bringing out some fringe and  shadowy publications. He was a familiar face in the Wayanad press club and in  Kalpetta town. The lean, black and articulate youth  has been branded by the police as a Maoist guerrilla in the jungles and is  a hard nut to crack for those acquainted with him.  He has been  missing for more than six years. Soman’s parents Ramankutti and Devi hail from Chuzhali, Kalpetta,  and their   kith and kin refuse to share anything about him as they are already under police interrogation and  surveillance.   

Soman was involved in more than a dozen cases earlier, including the attacks on the Asian Development Bank, the  house of a priest for exploiting tribal children and the office of NABARD in Kalpetta, said police. Cases were registered against him in Palakkad, Malappuram, Wayanad and Kannur in connection with Maoist activities.  He had participated in many actions of Porattom, alleged to be a frontal organisation of Communist Party of India (Maoist) and of Adivasi Samara Sangham, a tribal extremist outfit.