It is yet another year of upper hand for Telangana police in the battle against Left-wing extremists (LWE).
Year 2021, coming to an end in a week, witnessed successes of strategies adopted by the police in facing challenges from Left-wing extremists , especially members of the outlawed Communist Party of India (CPI)-Maoist. Two days ago, Maoists gunned down a former sarpanch of K Kondapuram village in Mulugu district in neighbouring Bijapur district of Chhattisgarh. Jurisdiction wise, the murder by Maoists was committed in Chhattisgarh. Yet the underlying message is that they still want to continue their attempts to regain foothold in Telangana which was once their stronghold. According to them, the village-level leader was a police informant. Barring this violence having potential to scare locals of the area, there was no formidable challenge from them to the police in the whole year.
Notwithstanding the attempts of the Maoists to revive their “revolutionary movement of fighting for rights of people,” police succeeded in getting 138 of them (including some members of other LWE groups) surrender. While continuing their “policy of persuading people not to join Maoists,” police arrested 112 of them - who included a former member of Maoist Central Committee, Varanasi Subrahmanyam alias Srikanth. In addition to the concerted efforts of network of informants and commando forces, Telangana police are continuously strategising with the police of Chhattisgarh and Maharasthra to check the movement of Maoists. Through the common border areas of these two States, the Maoists are trying to enter Telangana and regain strength. While keeping the Maoists at bay by consistent combing operations by elite commando forces, police are keeping a close watch on the attempts by some members of alleged frontal organisations of Maoists. In this regard, they registered three cases and arrested five of them. Some of the biggest setbacks to Maoists were the deaths of their top leaders Akkiraju Haragopal alias Ramakrishna and Telangana State Committee member Yapa Narayana alias Haribhushan (who was also Central Committee member). While RK died of kidney ailment, the latter lost his life due to COVID-19.