HYDERABAD : The banned Maoist party has been gaining strength in Andhra Pradesh and expanding in Telangana since the killing of 31 persons, including Maoists, Adivasis and minor boys, near the Andhra-Odisha Border (AOB) in Malkangiri district of Odisha last year.
This was stated in a report submitted by AP director-general of police N Sambasiva Rao and his Telangana counterpart Anurag Sharma to Union home minister Rajnath Singh at a meeting on Left Wing Extremism held in New Delhi on Monday. Keeping in mind the Maoist activities in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh and AOB, Sharma is understood to have informed Singh that they found LWE movement in six districts (formerly Khammam, Adilabad and Warangal) and the Maoists were trying to motivate people to their ideology.
Sources told Express that the Telangana DGP sought huge funds from the government for strengthening forces and training them in using cutting-edge technology to take on Maoists.
Further, he told the Union minister that even though they received reports of Maoist movement and formation of new dalams, there had been no violent incidents since the formation of Telangana except two exchanges of fire.
The report said the Telangana State Committee (TSC) of CPI (Maoist) was operating with three district committees _ Adilabad, Khammam and Karimnagar-Khammam-Warangal (KKW) _ and one special guerrilla squad (SGS) with around 92 cadres.
In AP, Maoists resorted to violence after a major blow to them in the AOB area where 31 were killed in an encounter.
Visakhapatnam is a Maoist-hit district and the extremists’ activities were increasing there, the AP DGP said and sought additional forces to contain Maoists. Rajnath Singh asked the DGPs of the two states to be vigilant and coordinate with each other, as well as assist the neighbouring states in combating the extremists.
With reference to Sukma attack in Chhattisgarh, it was said that around 80 young Maoists took part in the attack, indicating that freshers have been recruited to the party.