HYDERABAD: What’s in a name? Stating that ‘urban naxals’ are nothing but main stream Maoists, the Director General of Police (DGP) M Mahendar Reddy said on Sunday that the state police are keeping a close vigil on movements of ‘urban naxals’ following the arrest of four persons including three women by the Andhra Pradesh police.
“Urban naxals are appointed by the Maoist party for sharing logistics, recruitment of new cadre, and to motivate youngsters towards radical ideology. We will not spare such activities if found taking place in the state,” Mahendar Reddy said.
Responding to a query, the DGP denied any role in the controversial arrest of city-based revolutionary writer P Varavara Rao. He said in connection with the previous year’s Bhima Koregaon violence in Maharashtra, Pune police have obtained some leads about Varavara Rao and others. Based on clues, Pune police took action against Varavara Rao and there is no role of Telangana police in the case, DGP said.
Eyes back home. According to State police, there are 126 under ground cadres from Telangana working for the Maoist party having 17 Central Committee Members. Of the 17 Central Committee members, 14 members are also from Telangana. The Telangana State Committee is operating with 82 under ground cadre with 18 from Telangana and remaining from Chattisgarh.
The DGP confirmed that there were three incidents of exchange of fire with extremists of Maoists and other groups in Telangana resulting in the death of 19 extremists. With inputs from the Special Intelligence Branch (SIB) teams, there were 16 incidents of exchange of fire during interstate anti-Naxalite operation in which 21 extremists were neutralised.
As many as 120 maoists were arrested in Telangana in 2018 while nine extremists were held in interstate operations. Around ten extremists including District Committee Secretary (DCS)—one area committee member, one deputy commander and one dalam commander surrendered.
State police have seized 47 fire arms of different caliber including AK 47, Insas rifles, SLRs, 9mm carbines, SBBL, .303 rifles, revolvers, 8mm rifles, country made guns, explosives and cash `6.75 lakh in its anti extremist operations.