A team of the proscribed Communist Party of India (Maoist) reportedly put up posters on December 28 (Thursday) night at a tribal settlement at Gundikapparambu, near Thirunelly, in Wayanad district of Kerala claiming that a woman Maoist leader was killed in a police encounter that took place at Ayyankunnu in Kannur district on November 13, 2023.
A note that appeared along with the posters and claimed to be written by Jogi, spokesperson of Western Ghats Special Zone Committee of the CPI (Maoist), said woman cadre Kavitha, alias Lakshmi, was killed in the encounter and that the outfit would retaliate against the police action. One of the posters read that “the murder was a plot hatched by the Modi and Pinarayi governments for corporates to loot the Western Ghats.”
The note claimed that the encounter of the elite commando force Kerala Thunderbolts against a People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA) camp at Uruppukutty in Ayyankunnu grama panchayat was quite unexpected and that Kavitha sustained bullet injuries in the encounter.
Though Kavitha was rescued from the site, she succumbed to injuries later. Her body was cremated on the Western Ghats “befitting a fighter”, it said.
The note claimed that the outfit had “faced police action four times in the area in a month as part of Operation Samadhan, an operation of the (Narendra) Modi government to obliterate the Maoist forces ahead of the Lok Sabha election with the support of the Pinarayi (Vijayan) government.”
It further claimed that the police force was focussed on taking action against Maoists at Kelakam, Ayyankunnu and Aralam in Kannur, and Thavinhall and Thirunelly in Wayanad district.
Residents of Gundikapparambu hamlet have claimed that a six-member team had put up the posters, though the members could not be identified.
