A team of the Pune unit of the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) will visit Kerala while a reciprocal visit will be undertaken by intelligence units from Kerala and Andhra Pradesh to Pune following the sensational arrest of Murali Kannampilly, a top-ranking leader and theorist of the outlawed Communist Party of India (Maoist) from the outskirts of Pune last week.
Known in the Maoist hierarchy by his nom de guerre Ajith, Kannampilly, who has been absconding for the last three decades, is the son of a diplomat, Kannampilly Karunakara Menon, who was part of missions to several European countries.
REC dropout
A major figure in the Naxalite movement during the turbulent 1970s, Kannampilly, who dropped out of the Regional Engineering College Kozhikode to join armed revolution advocated by the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), shot to prominence as the mastermind of the midnight attack on the Kayanna police station (near Perambra in Kozhikode district) in February 1976 during the Emergency.
Ajith, who was picked up along with his 29-year-old aide C.P. Ismail from Talegaon Dabhade on the outskirts of Pune, has remained recalcitrant throughout his police custody, said ATS sources.
Ajith, who served as national secretary of the banned CPI (ML-Naxalbari) following its merger with CPI (Maoist) in 2014, and his aide Ismail were living in a plush apartment in the Lotus Villa building in Talegaon under false identities. They were picked up from a hospital in the area from where Ajith allegedly received some treatment.
The Pune ATS team, which has maintained silence over the affair, will leave for Kerala to verify details about the arrested, said sources.
