The Hindu : Police recover rice bags looted by naxals

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Sep 15, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Andhra Pradesh

Police recover rice bags looted by naxals

By Our Staff Reporter

NIZAMABAD SEPT. 14. The district police in swift action managed to recover stolen rice bags from a ration shop in Kottalpalli village under Sirikonda police station limits on Sunday.

A day after the People's War naxalites led by the National Highway area committee secretary, Swaroopa, raided the interior, highly naxal-affected village and looted 235 rice bags kept in the fair price shop dealer, Peekya's godown, the district special party police visited the village on Sunday and managed to recover 90 rice bags. Efforts are on to recover the remaining bags, which apparently were shifted to an undisclosed destination by the villagers fearing police action.

According to the Superintendent of Police, N. Madhusudan Reddy, the area committee secretary, Swaroopa, and three other squad members along with six local militants visited Kottalpalli around 10 p.m. on Friday in a tractor said to have been brought from Reddipet village and woke up the villagers. The local people were asked to follow the naxals to the house of the FPS dealer. The reluctant villagers went along with the naxals out of fear but did not dare to touch the rice bags despite repeated requests from the naxals.

The area committee secretary found it difficult to convince the villagers to take away the rice. At one stage, some women confronted the woman naxal forcing the latter to slap two of them. Although the naxals made a determined bid to convince the villagers, no one came forward to take the rice. Only after much cajoling some weaker section villagers picked up the rice bags and went away.

The women are said to have told the naxals in clear terms that they would be harassed by the police once the naxals left. Moreover, they reminded the PW naxals that they had taken an oath in Sadashivnagar some months ago that they would prevent the entry of the extremists. When the efforts by the naxals to convince the villagers failed, they left the place cursing them. The villagers feared the worst as the police led by the Bheemgal Circle Inspector, K.Srikant, Sadashivnagar SI, Muralidhar, and Sirikonda SI, Sriram, rushed to the village along with a special police party police this morning. Seeing the police, a large number of villagers voluntarily returned the looted rice and deposited the bags at the gram panchayat office. The police officials advised the villagers to bring the rice voluntarily. When only 70 bags could be recovered, the special party police began a house-to-house search and brought 20 more bags. The police suspect that the remaining rice was shifted to some other place.

The Nizamabad RDO, Krishnamohan Reddy, and other revenue staff visited the village to take stock of the rice bags. However, reports reaching here this evening indicated that the RDO and other officials left the village without distributing the rice to the villagers. It was left to the police to transport back the rice to Bheemgal for safe custody. The officials left the place saying that they would come back on Monday and distribute the rice among villagers.

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