After arresting two suspected activists of the proscribed Communist Party of India (Maoist) following a gunbattle at Periya in Wayanad on Tuesday night, the Thunderbolt squad and the Special Operations Group (SOG) have widened the dragnet in their search for two women who escaped after the encounter and also for others operating in the tri-junction of the three States of Kerala, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu.
Additional Director General of Police M.R. Ajith Kumar (Law and Order) said on Wednesday that the elite forces zeroed in on four suspected CPI(Maoist) activists, including three women, at Periya on Tuesday night as part of an ongoing routine exercise.
At least three groups were operating in the region and they had been regularly visiting tribal colonies in Palakkad, Kannur, Wayanad, and Kozhikode districts, he said.
The suspected Maoists who occupied a house at Periya for food and to charge their mobile phones and power bank opened fire as the forces surrounded the house, Mr. Ajith Kumar said, elaborating Tuesday night’s incident.
“As far as we know, no civilian, police officer or the arrested have been injured in the firing,” the ADGP said. The forces confiscated an AK 47 rifle, an INSAS rifle, and two country-made rifles from the site, he added.
Meanwhile, the two arrested CPI(Maoist) suspects, identified as Chandru, commander of the group of the the Banasura Dalam, and Unnimaya, were produced before the Additional Sessions Court at Kalpetta under tight security during which they raised slogans. They were later remanded in police custody for five days.
Police sources said there were 18 Peoples Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA) groups, the armed wing of the CPI( Maoist) operating in Kerala forests under the Banasura and Kabani dalams. Some of their leaders had moved to the trijunction to strengthen the outfit’s activities after the banned organisation suffered reversals in the Dandakaranya-Chhattisgarh-Odisha region and the tri-junction area of Jharkhand-Bihar and-West Bengal.
Last month, the police in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka decided to launch a joint operation after the Union government provided intelligence information that the CPI(Maoist) had increasingly been using the forest tri-junction of the southern States as a safe haven.
Commenting on the arrest of Thambi (Anish Babu), a CPI(Maoist) sympathiser, hours before the operation in Periya, Mr. Ajith Kumar said it was a completely different incident. Thambi, a native of Erode, Tamil Nadu, was arrested by the Kozhikode rural police from a vehicle near Koyilandy on Tuesday evening. He was a ‘courier’ associated with the Kabani Dalam, another Maoist group that works in Wayanad and Kannur. The Wayanad police had earlier issued a lookout notice against him. He was moved to the SOG headquarters at Areekode in Malappuram for questioning.
