Naxals abandon camp after encounter

By Our Staff Reporter

NIZAMABAD, APRIL 11. The People's Guerrilla Army of the banned People's War Group was holding a camp about three km away from Tuesday's encounter with the police in Gandigopalpur forest in Adilabad district.

The special party police which was combing the area came across the camp near Papaganiloddi where the fleeing naxals had left a lot of disposable material, medicines and disposable syringes. The naxals had dug a small well in the rivulet to draw water for the camp. A sentry post was found intact during the combing by the police.

It is understood that the naxals reportedly packed up their kits and abandoned the camp after a fierce gun battle started with one section of the military platoon some distance away from the camp. The police suspect the presence of the three sections of the military platoon -I.

The casualties in the Gandigopalpur encounter would have been more but for the brave fight put up by the three military platoon members of the Adilabad People's Guerrilla Army (PGA). The police personnel who participated in the fierce gun battle conceded that but for the three, the deaths on the naxal side would have been more. The three slain naxals held back the police personnel for a long time till the other 10 members made their escape. All the while, the three naxals kept firing from the Light Machine Gun, AK-47 and a country-made weapon.

Though the naxals were holed up in a rivulet, they put brakes to the movement of the Greyhounds commandos till the other naxals got away. The police personnel were getting down into the rivulet when they came under fire from the alert naxals. The police personnel were taken by surprise at the firing by the naxals holding an LMG and the AK-47. Before the police could react, three Greyhounds personnel sustained bullet injuries.

The police then took up position and started firing but were met with stiff resistance. The three naxals continued to fire at the police party but fell down to hail of bullets. They were successful enough to ensure the escape of the other naxals.

More information is now forthcoming about the identity of the slain military platoon secretary, Burra Sammaiah alias Mahesh alias Ravanna, hailing from Karimnagar district. A senior cadre, Sammaiah was the CO of Peddapalli squad and later had a stint in tek methods. After that, he was deputed to Aurangabad to be part of the weapon manufacturing unit and later was brought back as the district committee member of Nizamabad district before being elevated to the level of military platoon secretary in Adilabad. It is also a strange coincidence that all the three slain naxals went by the name Mahesh.

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