Police exchanged fire with Maoists nine times.
Representational image
Visakhapatnam: Vizag Rural police have achieved a major success in anti-Maoists operations in Vizag Agency and AOB areas in 2015 and the cops have decided to focus on the community policing in 2016 to win the hearts of the locals in the Maoist strongholds and to wean the tribal youth away from the Maoists. Superintendent of Police( Visakha Rural) Dr Koya Praveen said they exchanged fire with Maoists nine times in the district in 2015 and one Maoist Kopparthi Suryam was killed in an exchange of fire. “We have seized diaries of Maoist top gun Ramakrishna alias RK at the encounter place.”
The police have seized four 303 riffles, one country-made pistol, seven SBML guns, 14 rounds of 303 riffle, three landmines, four country-made grenades, 50 detonators, one cardex explosive,100 iron coupling sockets and caps (to make pipe bombs), two walky-talkies, two cell phones, one voice recorder, kit bags, camera flashes,wire bundles, literature from the CPI Maoists.
The Vizag Rural police chief said that in all, 85 members, including three Dalam members, 64 militia members and 18 sympathisers, were arrested this year. Over 100 members, including 9 extremists and 91 militia member surrendered to the cops. Maoists killed three innocent tribals branding them police informers, kidnapped one person, resorted to arson 13 time and were also involved in 10 other offences this year.
Green drug funds Maoists’ weapons:
The green drug trade in the red-flag areas in Vizag Agency and Andhra-Odisha Border (AOB) has been getting further murkier and major headache to police as it has become a convenient field for supplying arms and other material to the Maoists. Though the Vizag rural cops have tasted success in seizure of ganja and arresting the smugglers to a great extend in 2015, the police interrogation of smugglers found one case of a smuggler supplying a sophisticated small arm to the Maoists in the interior of Agency recently. Enquiries further revealed that the smugglers have supplied sweaters, clothes and medicines to the activists.
Superintendent of police (Visakha Rural) Dr Koya Praveen said that with the team work they have seized 29,309 kgs of ganja worth Rs 8.33 crore, highest in the history of Vizag Rural police who arrested 632 smugglers in 251 cases in 2015. Last year 23,000 kgs of ganja was seized and cases were booked aga-inst 514 people. However, there were four to five major smuggling gangs operating in the Agency and rivalry has surfaced among them with one gang hijacking the goods of another.
“Though arms have entered the Agency, we have not heard of their use so far. We seized two weapons from them,” says the Vizag Rural police chief. Replying a question on the ultras role in the ganja cultivation, Mr Praveen said that there was no evidence so far of Maoists encouraging the harvesting of ganja trade but enquiries revealed that they were collecting Rs 3 per Ghunta (58 Ghuntas make one acre).
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( Source : deccan chronicle )
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