KOLKATA: The CPI (Maoist)’s central committee has issued a statement in Kolkata, claiming the outlawed outfit was involved in the farmers’ agitation in Delhi. The statement, made available on Friday, described former Maoist politburo member Kobad Ghandy as a traitor.
“The militant movement of the farmers forced the Modi government to withdraw the three laws. The success of the struggle provided a good experience to our party,’’ the statement said. The group has faced its biggest setback with security agencies reportedly informing the Union home ministry that eight central committee members have been neutralised in nine months. This makes for one-third of the strength of the outfit’s policy-making body.
The outfit said that in one year, its 124 armed soldiers were killed during Samadhan-Prahar, an operation to decimate the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA), the armed wing of Maoists. The outfit claimed to have penetrated the Muslim community.
“A member of the party’s politburo, Kobad Ghandy, betrayed the revolutionary movement and released a book ‘Fractured Freedom -- a prison memoir’ to which the central committee wrote a reply in a theoretical booklet. It stated that Kobad’s book was a confession of a betrayer. It expelled him from the party,’’ the statement said.
Ghandy, 71, an Oxford University-educated academic, was arrested in 2009 but was acquitted and released in 2019. He reportedly participated in a meeting with the Nepalese Maoist leadership in Delhi in 2005.
The statement added: “In the guerrilla actions of PLGA, 13 paramilitary, commando and special police personnel were eliminated and 54 of them were injured. Five anti-people political leaders, 34 police
informers, two betrayers were eliminated.’’