HYDERABAD: Of late, there has been intense Maoist activity on the Andhra-Chhattisgarh border in the Bhadrachalam Agency area. The extremists have begun recruiting activists in the last 15 days in Cherla, Venkatapuram and Dummugudem mandals in Khammam district.
Getting wind of the recruitment drive, the Andhra Pradesh police have intensified the combing operations.
According to police, additional forces of Greyhounds, CRPF and special party police have been deployed along the border. According to a police officer, poor police movement in Chhattisgarh has emboldened the Maoists to cross over to Andhra without difficulty.
“There is no cooperation from the Chhattisgarh police. Our forces are going 7 or 8 km deep into the neighbouring state and are conducting combing operations,” he said.
The intelligence department has sent a report to the government that Maoists, under the leadership of platoon commander Sukhdev and Venkatapuram area secretary Sunita, are visiting villages in the border area and trying to recruit youth as militia.
They are targeting Gottikoya youth who are not getting any benefits from the Chhattisgarh government. The CPI (Maoist) has been reeling under depleted strength of leaders and has lost some top leaders Mallojula Koteswara Rao(Kishenji), Sudhakar Reddy and Azad in the recent past.
Some other top leaders Narayan Sanyal, Sushil Roy, Amit Bagchi and Kobad Ghandy are in jail.
The party also lost several second-rung leaders. This is one reason why it has taken up recruitment of activists.