BENGALURU: “It’s a conspiracy to single me out by vested interests from the Malekudiya tribe, for whom I am an activist fighting for their rights and well-being in the Kudremukh reserve forest in Belthangady taluk,” said Vittal Malekudiya (26) who addressed a room full of reporters on Thursday in Bengaluru.
Vittal, who is also contesting for the Gram Panchayat elections, to be held on the May 29, has been accused of being a member of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist) and was arrested under sedition charges by the state police on March 3, 2012 from his village Kutloor in Belthangady taluk.
After serving a jail-term for about four months, Vittal was granted bail and he also claims that he was assured by the then BJP state government that no chargesheet will be filed as there was no sufficient evidence against him. While Vittal had taken up his KAS examinations on April 19 this year, he was shocked when he came to know that the Karnataka police had recently submitted a chargesheet at the Belthangady sessions court, in connection with the three-year-old sedition case.
Vittal now claims that he has been falsely implicated for reasons best known to the police. He also blamed the present Additional Commissioner of Police Alok Kumar for destroying his life and career. Alok Kumar was the then Anti-Naxal Force (ANF) chief under whose leadership Vittal and five others were arrested from Belthangady. Vittal’s father Lingappa Malekudiya whose leg was fractured by one ANF personnel, was also named as accused number 7 in the case, Vittal added.
Vittal pointed out that the chargesheet had loopholes. “The police in their charge-sheet, claims that the Rs 21,000 in cash recovered from my house in Kutloor was collected by me from the tribals to fund the banned outfit. But in reality it was my mother’s savings as my parents did not have any bank accounts,” he claimed. The police have also mentioned in their charge-sheet about a book on Bhagat Singh, written by veteran journalist Kuldip Nayar and translated into Kannada by G.P. Basavaraju, claiming that I had Naxal literature in my possession,” Vittal told reporters.
Vittal accused the police of falsely framing him in the sedition case and to prove his faith in democracy, the journalism student is contesting the gram panchayat election from Ward 2 of Naravi panchayat. He has been allotted autorickshaw as poll symbol.
