Suspected infiltration of Communist Party of India (Maoist) activists into Kerala began sometime back in the wake of major operations such as Green Hunt by the Central Reserve Police Force against naxalites in the Dandakaranya area falling in the States of Chhattisgarh, Odisha, and Andhra Pradesh.
A few regions including Gudalur, Wayanad, Nilambur, Kodaikanal, Udupi, and Dakshina Kannada are now said to be part of a tri-junction province of the CPI (Maoist). The zone, it is understood, has become a safe haven for fleeing naxalites and their full-fledged activity, particularly the districts of Karnataka bordering Kerala.
Sources in various intelligence wings told The Hindu on Monday that the recovery of Maoist literature in Malayalam from Belthangany in March this year during a raid by the Karnataka Police has strengthened the belief that CPI (Maoist) cadres are active in the State. The seized literature has given indications of their training programmes, exercise modules, weaponry, explosives, rules and regulations to be followed in the battlefield, and boundary camps in Kerala and Karnataka.
Stringent policing in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh has compelled many cadres flee to the forests in Kerala. At least four ultra-Left wing extremists, whose names and mobile phone numbers have been found by the Tamil Nadu Police, could be hiding here. More than 60 members of the Tamil Nadu unit of the CPI (Maoist) have obtained training in guerrilla warfare, according to the sources.
Their strategy
Some of the documents indicate either the conclusion of or proposal for camps in many areas including the Silent Valley in Palakkad district. These pertain to organising camps and expenditure for food and facilities inside forests, sources say.
The literature in Tamil, Telugu, and Kannada discloses the strategy of the CPI (Maoist) to fortify the tri-junction, which has been converted into the South India Regional Committee. The South India Regional Committee has been formed as part of the expansion of the outfit in other areas including Kashmir and the North East. CPI (Maoist) central committee spokesman Abhay alias Venugopal Rao is in charge of the committee.
Subsequently, the once dissolved Kerala State Organising Committee (KL-SOC) has become active with its special conference being held in Chhattisgarh last year. One of the State committee members, Sinoj alias Ramesan, who jumped bail after his arrest from Mananthavady in Wayanad district in 2009, attended a training programme of the People's Liberation Guerrilla Army in Jharkhand last year.
Apart from urban centres in Ernakulam, the CPI (Maoist) has regional committees to infiltrate hamlets in Wayanad, Palakkad, and Idukki districts. Their two-pronged strategy is to open new war fronts by strengthening their organisational base and forming dalams (guerrilla squads) with cadres infiltrating into Kerala from neighbouring States.
As early as 2004, the CPI (Maoist) had carried out a social investigation in the State and started an urban area in Kochi and two units at South Wayanad and North Wayanad. It also started organisations such as Janakeeya Vimochana Munnani, but these have become defunct. So also a political magazine, Janakeeyapatha, in Malayalam, the sources say.
