PADUKKA (MALAPPURAM): Three Maoists, including a woman, were killed in an encounter with the Kerala Police, deep inside the forests at Padukka under Nilambur forest range in Malappuram district on Thursday. The encounter occurred around noon during a combing operation carried out by a 60 -member police team, including commandos attached to Kerala’s elite special force Thunderbolt and anti-Naxal wing. The team spotted around 10 Maoists at Kadannakapu and asked them to surrender. A gunfight followed and three persons were killed. According to the police, other members of the group fled the spot.
The deceased are Kuppu Devaraj alias Shanker, a senior Maoist leader and central committee member of the Maoist outfit and Anitha, a woman leader. The identity of the third person is yet to be ascertained.
The anti-Maoist operation was led by Malappuram police chief Debesh Kumar Behera who had been camping in the area from 3 am on Thursday. Thrissur Range Inspector General M R Ajith Kumar coordinated the operation.
The encounter spot was around 4.5 km away from Padukka. The bodies of the deceased will be brought to Kozhikode Medical College Hospital for post-mortem on Friday.
According to police officers, the combing operation started around 3 am when the force ventured into the forest in search of the Maoists based on specific intelligence inputs. The police had received reliable information that Kuppu Devaraj was camping in the area for the last few months and holding camps inside the forest. Kuppu Devaraj, a native of Karnataka, is the senior-most Maoist leader in the tri-junction forest belt bordering Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
Officers said the combing operation will continue to stop the fleeing Maoists from regrouping. “We had specific information about movement of Maoists in the area.
We had brought Nilambur forest region under surveillance after suspected Maoists opened fire at a police team a month ago. The Maoists have been frequenting the area and interacting with the locals at Mundakadavu colony,” said a police officer.
It is said that armed cadre of CPI (Maoist) had participated in the 12th formation day celebrations of the party in the forests of Nilambur. The Maoists also held a parade on the occasion at Mukkavala that shares a border with Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. They even released a press note and photographs of the celebration to the media.