Anti-Maoist hunt in Kerala forests stirs controversy

The massive hunt by Kerala Police for armed Maoists in the State’s northern jungles bordering Karnataka continued for the third consecutive day on Friday even as Adivasis living in the region alleged that the search was perhaps an act of overreaction from the police’s part as presence of extremists had not yet been convincingly confirmed.

The Thirunelli forests in Wayanad witnessed the first-ever commando action in Kerala as a platoon of Thunderbolt, the recently constituted commando unit of the State police, scoured the jungles for the elusive extremists just when Kerala Police officials claimed that armed Maoists had indeed reached the area.

They said that a group of five armed extremists, including a woman, had appeared at Chittari colony in Kanjirakkolli near the Karnataka border the other day and made Babu, an Adivasi, to buy provisions for them for which they paid him `2,500. However, the Maoists disappeared into the jungles after sighting a team of Excise personnel in the area.

Officials said that the Maoists had distributed in the Adivasi colony pamphlets calling for armed uprising. Also, pro-Maoist posters have appeared in Thirunelli asking the Adivasis to assist communist revolution. The police took into custody CK Gopalan, an activist of pro-Maoist outfit Porattom (Battle) over this.

While one platoon of Thunderbolt commandos was continuing its search code-named Operation Brahmagiri in the Thirunelli forests in Wayanad, the other moved to Payyavur in Kannur district where Maoists were said to have been sighted on Thursday. Maoists were first sighted in the region on February 1 at Mankundi near Kanamvayal on the inter-State border.

Raul R Nair, Superintendent of Police, Kannur who had supervised searches in the region the other day had confirmed the presence of Maoists but on Friday, a top official of the Karnataka Police told the media that there was no confirmation so far on whether the armed men sighted in the forest were Maoist extremists.

Chief Minister Oommen Chandy himself confirmed on Friday that armed Maoists had infiltrated into the jungles of northern Kerala but Adivasis living in the region, presently in the grip of panic following the police searches in the colonies in the name of anti-Maoist operation, allege that the hunt is perhaps unrealistic.

According to the Adivasis, incidents like distribution of pamphlets before February 18, the anniversary of the “martyrdom’ of Naxalite Varghese in the hands of the Kerala Police 43 years back, and February 19, the day Muthanga in Wayanad saw a huge police action against Adivasis a decade back in which one of them was killed, are nothing new.

Adivasi Gothra Mahasabha leader CK Janu, leader of the Muthanga agitation, told the media that the present anti-Maoist search seemed to be part of an effort by the State Government to divert public attention from the problems it was facing. “This cannot be ruled out especially as the Government is facing sharp criticisms over issues like the Suryanelli scandal,” she said.

Another Adivasi from Thirunelli said that colonies in the region had not seen any instance of Maoist incursion anytime in the recent past. “We don’t expect anything like that to happen in the future. I don’t think the police would react in this scale to the operation of the small groups. It seems that the real intention is something else,” he said.

Meanwhile, the police on Friday filed chargesheet in a court in Kochi against Maoists Mallaraja Reddy from Andhra Pradesh, his wife Suguna, Roopesh from Thrissur, Kerala and his wife Shyna, a lawyer, in a case pertaining to the alleged organisation of a meeting at Perumbavoor to plan armed uprising.

Source http://www.dailypioneer.com/nation/128027-anti-maoist-hunt-in-kerala-forests-stirs-controversy.html