On the eve of Friday’s ZPTC and MPTC elections in the Visakha Agency area where the Maoists have many pockets of strong influence, the police arrested seven persons, including an active member of the party’s support system on Wednesday.
By arresting Gabilingi Appa Rao, head of the panchayat committee of the Maoist party of Balapam village in Chintapalli mandal, the police inflicted a major damage to the logistic support to the Maoists’ activities in the area. Each of the panchayat committees formed by Maoist has under it group committee consisting of representatives of some villages of the panchayat and village level committee, represented by a few residents of each village. Formation of panchayat committees came to light recently. Members of all the three levels of the committees will provide logistic support to the Maoists and do tasks like damaging roads, cutting trees, hanging banners, etc. The Balapam panchayat committee comes under the Korukonda area committee of the CPI (Maoist).
Superintendent of Police Vikram Jeet Duggal said at a press conference where Appa Rao was presented, said the arrest of seven persons and surrender of three sympathisers was a major blow to the Maoist party on the eve of elections. The arrested persons were involved in three murders and four blastings.
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