Hyderabad: The Siddipet police has arrested six persons including Nakrekal MLA Vemula Veeresham’s brother Vemula Ramchander for links with the banned Janashakti and other Maoist outfits.
The police seized three pistols, a revolver, 58 rounds of ammunition, 250 grams of high grade explosives and 20 electrical detonators from them after the arrest on Monday.
The arrested persons are Repaka Swamy, an employee of a private firm, Basoju Narsimha Chary alias Raghu, contributor to a regional news TV channel in Suryapet, Mantoori Balanarsu, a scrap trader, Gundlapally Venkatesh, a toddy tapper and farmers Vemula Ramchander and Ranjith Kumar.
Siddipet police commissioner V. Siva Kumar said the arrested men were working as couriers for Maoists since many years.The commissioner said that Swamy is the brother of one Ilaiah who died in an encounter with the police in 2004.
Swamy had been working as a courier and frequently met Maoist cadres. In 2012, he and another sympathiser travelled to Odisha and met senior Maoist leaders. While returning they gave him Rs 80,000 and some memory cards loaded with party songs.
He was told that one Raghu will call on him and give him some weapons which should be kept safe till further orders.“After he returned Raghu met him near Shameerpet and handed over two pistols with 29 rounds of ammunition and three magazines and since then they were with Swamy,” the commissioner said.
Raghu alias Narsimha Chary was arrested in 2016 in Nalgonda and one weapon was recovered from him. Police found that he had procured the weapons from Ranjith.
Raghu distributed the weapons to Swamy, Venkatesh, Ramchander and Mahesh who were couriers. Raghu also gave a weapon to his uncle Balaiah, who threw it in the Musi River in Hyderabad out of fear. However, during police questioning, Raghu did not confess that he gave the weapons to the above persons.
Balanarsu was active in motivating youths to participate in the meetings of Maoist front organisations and was coordinating between Maoists and APCLC members. Venkatesh is also a close associate of Raghu. He was earlier arrested along with Raghu and three others by Aleru and Rachakonda police. Police found that Raghu gave him a revolver to keep in his custody.
"We seized a revolver and one magazine from Venkatesh, two pistols, three magazines and 39 rounds from Swamy and a pistol, two magazines, 19 rounds, explosives and electrical detonators from Ramchander," the police commissioner
