The Hindu : Karnataka News : Naxalites strike again in State after lying low for a while

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, May 20, 2005

Karnataka

Karnataka

Naxalites strike again in State after lying low for a while

Staff Correspondent

Attack causes anxiety among tribal people in the Western Ghats region

HASSAN: Naxalites, who were lying low in the Western Ghats region, their "perspective area," after the death of a top leader, Saketh Rajan, who was killed in a police encounter in Menasinahadya village on February 7, have once again struck with the gunning down of a tribal person, P. Seshaiah Gowdlu, on Tuesday night.

The victim was a Congress member of the Koppa Taluk Panchayat.

Though the Communist Party of India (Maoist) avenged the death of Saketh Rajan by killing six police personnel and a civilian in Venakatammanahalli of Pavagada taluk on February 11, they subsequently maintained a low profile. Nevertheless there were reports of naxalites frequenting a few villages in the area.

According to sources, the naxalites killed Seshaiah because they suspected that he was a police informer and in order to deter others from providing information to the police.

`Not a police informer'

However, the Superintendent of Police, Chikmagalur, B.K. Singh, said Seshaiah was not a police informer and was just like any other tribal person in the area. He did not agree with the naxal ideology and questioned them.

Seshaiah is said to have helped the high-level official team that visited Menasinahadya to study the socio-economic conditions of the tribal people.

The killing of Seshaiah has created anxiety among the tribal people in the region. People from nearby areas who assembled in Menasinahadya blamed the Government for the killing. The Sringeri MLA, D.N. Jeevaraj, held the Government responsible for the incident.

Criticising the murder, the Kudremukh Rashtriya Udyana Virodhi Okkuta described it as an inhuman act. The president of the okkuta, Kalkuli Vittal Hegde, objected to the Government's decision to deploy Special Task Force (STF) to take on the naxalites. "Let the Government take action against the culprits, but they should not harass tribal people by deploying the STF," he said.

The Inspector-General of Police (Western Range), H.N. Satyanarayana Rao, refused to comment on the delay by the Government in deploying the STF even after intelligence sources said that Sudhakara Reddy, a hard-line leader had assumed charged of the movement.

He said the Deputy Inspector-General of Police (DIG) Jayaprakash Nayak, who has been asked to head the STF operations, will reach the place soon.

To a query on providing protection to those who are said to be on the hit list of the naxalites, he said that though the number of such persons is limited, it is difficult to provide police protection to each of them, as they live in remote areas.

Nevertheless, with the deployment of STF, they would not face any problems, he added.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Karnataka