Vigil has been intensified in the forest areas of Telangana’s border mandals of Charla and Dummugudem abutting Chhattisgarh’s Maoist hotbed of south Bastar division in view of the CPI (Maoist)’s call for week-long celebration of the outfit’s 18th anniversary from September 21 to 27.
An uneasy calm continued to prevail at Kurnapalli and its surrounding forest fringe villages dotting the restive Telangana-Chhattisgarh border. Last month, suspected Maoist militia members hacked the village deputy sarpanch Irpa Ramudu to death by branding him as a police informer, while the police denied the charge.
The Charla police claimed to have arrested CPI (Maoist) area committee member Madakam Kosi alias Rajitha, wife of senior Maoist leader Damodar, wanted in several cases of ‘Maoist violence’ including the ‘murder’ of Kurnapalli deputy sarpanch, along with another woman cadre during a combing operation in the Kurnapalli-Bodanelli forest area earlier this month.
A CRPF base camp was formally inaugurated by the top brass of the State police as well as the CRPF at Chennapuram in Charla mandal last week in an apparent move to scale up joint surveillance and combing operations on the Telangana-Chhattisgarh border to track the movement of Maoists.
Meanwhile, wall posters in the name of CPI (Maoist) Charla-Sabari area committee reportedly sprang up in Pusuguppa forest area in the border mandal on Monday. Through the posters, the Maoists called upon people to participate in the week-long celebration of the outfit’s 18th anniversary and defeat the Centre’s “Operation Samadhan – Prahar.”
In a statement, Bhadrachalam ASP B Rohith Raj alleged that the Maoists brutally killed Kurnapalli deputy sarpanch Ramudu, an innocent tribal man, last month.
“The incident sparked outcry from local Adivasis who have denounced the heinous act in unequivocal terms,” he said, listing out the outreach activities conducted by the police in the remote tribal villages in Bhadrachalam Agency to extend a helping hand to Adivasis during the COVID-19 pandemic in the past and also during recent floods.
