HYDERABAD: Indian security agencies have thwarted Maoist attempts to get worldwide publicity for the revolutionary movement through a website.

The site has been blocked by the web hosting company on the request of the Indian Government last week.

The site, peoplesmarch.com, which hosts articles and statements of the Communist Party of India (Maoist), has gone offline a week back. The regular monthly updates on the site on the revolutionary movement in India provided international publicity to the Indian Maoists for the last three years. The site is hosted on a server, which could be traced to Colorado in the United States.

However, the print edition of the monthly People's March is still available in various States including Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Orissa. The monthly is ostensibly edited and published by P. Govindan Kutty of Ernakulam district in Kerala.

Consequent to the blocking of the website by the Indian security agencies, Maoist organisations based in other countries posted messages on several blog sites appealing for support for the Indian movement by subscriptions to the magazine.

Bookshop listed

A posting on a blog says the magazine can be obtained from a publication house in London. The blog had even listed a bookshop on Caledonian road, Kings Cross, in London. "Send a first class stamped addressed large A$ envelope, conceal two pounds ... with a note for the request for the People's March," the blog message states.

The blogger had also put an e-mail address of yahoo.co.uk, where mails can be sent for subscribing to the magazine.

The magazine, which went online in 2003, has become the mouthpiece of Indian revolutionaries, as it had been carrying messages from top the Maoist leadership, including party central committee secretary Muppala Lakshamn Rao, more popularly known as Ganapathy.

Government sources indicate that the Andhra Pradesh Government wrote to the Centre pointing out that Maoist literature was being made freely available on the Internet. More importantly, the Centre is stated to have taken a serious view of the website, after a People's March issue was entirely dedicated to the movement in the Dandakaranya region in Chhattisgarh. Authors of several articles had severely criticised the "Salwa Judoom" (peace initiative) launched by Congress MLA Mahendra Karma in the Bastar forests.

More than 200 people have been killed in attacks by the Maoists and counter attacks by Central forces in the Bastar forest areas in the last six months.

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