Veeravaram, the native village of a spiritual leader Gemmela Sanjeeva Rao who was killed by the Maoists near Korukonda shandy in Visakha Agency on October 29 and his friends and relatives clobbered to death two Maoists in retaliation, is returning to normal, Superintendent of Police Koya Praveen said here on Saturday.
The villagers vacated Veeravaram after being threatened by the Maoists who also warned them that they had identified 19 persons involved in the attack and would “try” them in the “Praja court”. “We are sending them (villagers) back to Veeravaram in batches…. presence of Maoists in the Agency was not much. They were seen at some places during the PLGA week (observed during early December)”, Dr. Praveen said during the year-end press conference.
He said that CPI (Maoist) general secretary Ganapathi had not been present in the Andhra-Odisha border area in recent past.
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On the surrender to the department of the Sub-Inspector in the case involving Payakaraopeta MLA V. Anitha, Dr. Praveen said the officer should have informed higher officials after he had booked the case. It was embarrassing for him and others when the office of AP Assembly had sought details of the case booked against MLA, he said. A case was filed against Ms. Anitha for allegedly beating up a person.
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Huge quantity of ganja which was being cultivated in the Agency and smuggled to different places in the country had been seized during this year. But tracing the kingpins behind the illegal act was proving to be difficult since their link with those smuggling ganja could not be established. They were acting cleverly and persons engaged to transport ganja would know to take it from one point to another and they were not aware who was actually organising the whole operation, Dr. Praveen said.
During this year, the Maoists had killed there persons and were involved in two cases of blasting and resorted to violence during the elections. Nine persons, including a professor of Andhra University, were arrested on the charge of having explosives or weapons with them or transporting them. Nine important underground Maoists were arrested and 19 others had surrendered. They were among 83 arrested and 82 surrendered persons.