HYDERABAD: An elderly Maoist couple — Koti Purshotham (69) and his wife Koti Vinodini (64) — carrying a reward of Rs 8 lakh and Rs 5 lakh respectively, surrendered before Hyderabad police commissioner Anjani Kumar here on Tuesday citing “political differences” and health reasons.
“There were serious issues in the party leadership. It has lost vision. But the primary reason why we have surrendered is our increasing health concerns,” said Purshotham. “In the last 10 years, no one has asked us how are we living. We don’t have any work and even after giving three decades to the party, it has ill-treated us in our old age,” he said.
Purshotham (alias Vijay alias Sharath alias Chandra) has been a regional committee member in the party. He has also been part of the Agitation Propaganda Committee (APC), a publishing unit in the CPI (Maoist) Party after joining the party in 1981. He has a degree in Bachelor of Oriental Languages (BOL) and Masters degree in history, and was working as headmaster of Ambedkar Vidyaniketan primary school in Addagutta in 1981, when he came in contact with Maoist leaders Mallajula Koteshwar Rao (alias Kishan ji) and KG Satyamurthy. He married Koti Vinodini (alias Vijaya Laxmi alias Bharathakka), who was a teacher, in 1982.
He is said to have recruited around 60 youths and sent them to forest for training between 1981 and 1986 when he worked as city committee secretary in Hyderabad, even as Vinodini worked as a teacher in city. The couple was arrested in March 1991 only to be released in exchange for release of an abducted Youth Congress leader P Sudheer Kumar three months later.
He looked after the Agitation Propaganda Committee (APC) between 1997 and 2000. Between 1996 and 2005, he also worked in the sub-committee on political education(SCOPE) in Tamil Nadu. Meanwhile, Vinodini worked in Prakasam dalam, Ananthagiri dalam and Uddanam Srikakulam dalam up to 1996, when she joined her husband in APC.
From 2005 to 2014, the duo stayed in Chennai under the guidance of central committee member Akkiraju Hara Gopal alias RK and was not given any responsibility. “I have written letters to the Central Committee expressing my concerns but no one has ever addressed them. The party has ignored my contributions and refuse to change its strategies and tactics in changing times and there is no hope for educated youth to work in the party,” said Purshotham, who had only words of praise for the TRS government. As of his involvement in the attacks, the police commissioner said they are yet to find out the details.