Having lost their ground in Telangana - once their bastion for the past several years, Maoists are trying to stage comeback by attracting youngsters in rural areas, especially students.
Sources insist ‘the recruitment’ by Maoists has been going on for past few months. This is the first large-scale recruitment of Maoists since their grip over Telanagna region in the then united Andhra Pradesh was shattered by law -enforcing agencies in the last two decades.
‘Succeed for the first time’
Although the Maoists had made several attempts before to regain ‘their past glory’, it is perhaps for the first time in recent times that their efforts to lure youngsters towards ‘the movement’ has been successful to some extent, claim sources in the Intelligence Department, not wishing to be identified.
Recent encounters
Nineteen-year-old Kodamgundla Vivek of Suryapet in Nalgonda is one good example among the recent recruits.
The teenager dropped out of the five-year law course from a college in Hyderabad, and was killed along with two other Maoists by the police on Telangana-Chhattisgarh border five months ago.
Described as ‘squad leader’ by Telangana CPI (Maoists) secretary Jagan, the teenager got attracted to the Left wing extremism and joined the Maoists as part of the ‘ongoing recruitment efforts’, say police sources. His is not an isolated case.
Three months after Vivek’s death, two Maoists Sruthi alias Mahitha and Vidyasagar Reddy were killed in an exchange of fire with police in a forest near Rangapuram of Warangal district. While Sruthi was a M.Tech student, Reddy was a private employee for a while.
The ‘first encounter’ in Telangana after its formation sent the alarm bells ringing in the intelligence offices about the resurgence attempts by the Maoists. Subsequent arrests of some more in Warangal district on charge of joining Maoists vindicated reports that the Maoists were taking steps to strengthen their base by inducting fresh blood.
Meanwhile, there were reports doing the rounds that some students of educational institutions in Warangal went ‘missing’. Alerted by the unconfirmed reports that the missing students joined Maoists, local police and intelligence officials made extensive inquiries.
“Reports of groups of students joining the Maoists turned out to be false. But it is a fact that Maoists have been and are trying to lure youngsters from every area, including colleges,” observed a senior police officer of Telangana seeking anonymity.
