The suspected Maoists have refused to divulge any details about their activities
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Coimbatore: Three men including a former cop, with suspected Maoist links were arrested in Pollachi on Friday, for allegedly luring a tribal youth into an extremist movement.
The suspected Maoists - Ganapathy, 39 from Pollachi, Selvaraj, 55 from Sultanpet and Sihamani, 27 from Angalakurichi - were arrested following a complaint from a tribal that the trio had brainwashed his 23-year-old son into joining an extremist group.
The arrest of the suspected Maoists comes a little over a month after the police swooped on five Maoists including the couple, Roopesh and Saina at Karamathampatty near Coimbatore city.
According to the Coimbatore rural police, the three accused had spearheaded a movement called ‘jaathi olippu viduthalai munnetra iyakkam’ (Caste Eradication, Liberation, Progressive Movement) and moved a large number of tribals, who were living in a residential neighbourhood of JJ Nagar in Angalakurichi, to settle in the reserve forest of Anaimalai Tiger Reserve (ATR). The tribals were evacuated from the forests by police and forest department staff, three months ago.
A few days ago, tribal Arjunan from Angalakurichi lodged a police complaint claiming that his son Santhosh Kumar, who went missing in August last year, had actually joined an extremist movement.
He alleged that these three men took advantage of their family’s poverty and forced his son into the movement. The District superintendent of police M Sudhakar too confirmed that the three accused had inducted the missing person in a Maoist movement for which they were arrested under Unlawful Prevention Act. “Our investigations revealed that they had inducted one person,” he said. During police interrogation, the suspected Maoists refused to divulge any details about their activities.
“They refused to take food and didn’t co-operate with the enquiry. The three persons also kept shouting at the police claiming that false cases are being foisted on them even when the enquiry was underway at the Aliyar police station,” the police said. Police sources said that Ganapathy was a cop who was dismissed for indulging in unlawful activities and the two others were daily wage labourers. All the three persons have been remanded to judicial custody and lodged at the Coimbatore Central Prison.
( Source : deccan chronicle )
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