Hyderabad: Party lost seven cadres in an encounter in Maharashtra in December
HYDERABAD: Officers of the intelligence department had been monitoring the movements of Maoists leaders in the state months before sharing information, which led to Friday’s encounter, with the anti-Maoist police units of Telangana and Chhattisgarh.
After receiving the information, the Telan-gana police deployed the anti-Maoist Greyhound team and launched a combing operation in the forests on the border of Chhattisgarh and TS. Within three days, the police managed to surround the Maoists, and a gun battle ensued.
Intelligence officials say that apart from the central committee of the Maoist party, they are focusing on the state committee and other local committees of the CPI (Maoist) as well. They are also focussing on splinter groups of the People’s War Group (PWG) as part of an overall strategy to wipe out the Maoists.
There are about 70 Maoists operating in TS, about 10 to 15 of whom are from the state. In all, about 130 cadres from the state are associated with the Maoist movement in the country. The central committee has ten members from TS, and two from AP. The rest are from Jharkhand and Maharashtra.
Officials say that Friday’s encounter will land a big blow to the Maoist movement in the state. The CPI (M) has been trying to strengthen its base in the state after suffering several losses in form of encounters and surrenders of important leaders.
The Maoists have already suffered blows due to the two encounters reported in Gadchiroli in Maharashtra, in which they lost seven cadres, in December. In the same month, members of the Chandra Pulla Reddy Bata faction of the CPI (ML), an extremist group, were killed in an encounter in Khammam.
This is the first major encounter after the surrender of Jampanna alias Rajesh, a member of the central committee, in December. The state government, through the police, is trying to woo the Maoists into cooperation.
The police have received information that some rebels are willing to sever ties with the party which once attracted several youths.
HC orders autopsy of slain Maoists
Hyderabad High Court on Friday directed TS government and police authorities to conduct the post-mortem of two bodies of Maoists brought to Bhadrach-alam area hospital from the encounter spot on the Telangana-Chhattisgarh border.
This was as per the guidelines of the Supreme Court and the National Human Rights Commission.
A division bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Ramesh Ranganathan and Justice K. Vijaya Lakshmi directed the authorities to conduct the post mortem by forensic science experts and video graph the entire process.
The bench directed the police authorities to preserve the bodies at the Bhadrachalam hospital for identification by their family members and hand over the bodies after establishing their identity.
Counsel for petitioner V. Raghunath submitted that about 10 Maoists were killed by the police in the name of an encounter, urged the court to order a judicial probe and register murder case against police personnel who participated in the encounter.
He also wanted the court to direct the police to conduct post mortem either at Wara-ngal MGM Hospital or at Osmania Hospital in Hyderabad. Additional Advocate-General J. Ramachandra Rao submitted that the encou-nter took place within Chhattisgarh and the court had no jurisdiction to take up the case.
