Maoists vow revenge for Madhav's killing

HYDERABAD: The CPI (Maoists) have vowed to avenge the recent killing of their AP State Committee secretary Madhav and other naxalites in the Nallamala forests. The Maoists, while swearing revenge, alleged that the Greyhounds also tortured some of the injured Maoists before killing them.

CPI (Maoist) Central Committee spokesperson Azad, in a press release on Friday, said that based on the information given by a Maoist who was arrested a few days earlier, the Greyhounds, comprising 800 to 1,000 personnel, accompanied by informers surrounded the Maoist camp situated between Parutla and Nekkanti in the forest area and fired indiscriminately in the early hours of July 23.

The spokesperson alleged that the latest killings in Nallamala was part of the larger plan hatched by the Y S Rajasekhara Reddy government to decimate the Maoists in the state.

Several leaders like Yadanna, a member of North Telangana Special Zonal Committee, Ramesh, Babanna, Sreenu, Ranjit, Sreekanth, Jagadesh of North Telangana and Ravi, Mohan Raghu, Santosh of the AP State Committee fell to police bullets in 2005 and the offensive has been stepped up in 2006, he said.

Meanwhile, the state cabinet which reviewed the law and order situation in the state on Friday decided to extend the ban on CPI Maoists and its six frontal organisations till August 2007.

According to a senior minister, the organisations on which the ban would be imposed are: Radical Youth wing, Rythu Coolie Sangham, Radical Students Union, Sikasa, and All India Revolutionary Students Federation.

However, there is no ban on the revolutionary writers wing Virasam. The cabinet was of the opinion that since the ban was reimposed in 2005, the police effectively brought under control the naxal problem.

The intensified combing operations had given good results. It felt that the Moaists had received a setback with the state secretary of CPI Maoists Madhav being killed on July 23 in a shoot out with police in Nallamalla forest.

However, the cabinet was of the opinion that this should not lead to complacency particularly in view of the increasing global threat perspective.

There are plans to further strengthen the police network and adopt newer technologies to effectively counter the fast changing strategies of the Maoists, the sources said.

It may be mentioned here that the state government soon after coming to power had allowed the ban to meet a natural death when it expired on July 22 2004 and initiated the peace talks. Even though the talks failed, it did not impose a fresh ban for the next 13 months.

But following the killing of Congress legislator Chittem Narsi Reddy and eight others by an action team at Naryanpet in Mahbubnagar district on Independence day last year, it decided to re-impose the ban on the Maoists under Andhra Pradesh Public Security Act 1992 on August 16, 2006.

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