Karnataka - Bangalore   

‘Gowtham was CPI (Maoist) office-bearer’

Staff Reporter

BANGALORE: It was the Andhra Pradesh police who informed their Karnataka counterparts that one of the five suspected naxalites killed in an encounter in Chikmagalur district on Tuesday was the Karnataka State Committee member of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist).

Karnataka police sources told The Hindu that the Andhra Pradesh police had informed them that Gowtham (30), who was killed in the encounter, was a State committee member.

The Andhra Pradesh police, who were monitoring the activities and communication of the naxalites in the two States, learnt that Gowtham was in touch with the Central Military Commission of the CPI (Maoist), the sources said. Gowtham’s name figured in the booklet, Naxalites and their Activities in Malnad Region, released by the Karnataka police few weeks ago.

In fact, the Andhra Pradesh police had been tracking the movements of the Karnataka State secretary of the CPI (Maoist) and Central Committee member Sande Rajamouli and his associate Somanna, alias Cheturaju Papaiah since May.

According to sources in the Andhra Pradesh police, the two were taking shelter in the Bangalore residence of Pandu, also a Karnataka State Committee member of CPI (Maoist). While Rajamouli was killed in an encounter by the Andhra Pradesh Special Intelligence Branch (SIB) police at Dharmavaram in Ananthapur district on June 22, Somanna was killed in an encounter in Warangal district on July 1, the sources said. Meanwhile, the Andhra Pradesh unit of CPI (Maoist) said the SIB police had killed Rajamouli in a fake encounter after arresting him at Kollam in Kerala on June 21. He was brought to Bangalore before he was killed in Dharmavaram, the Andhra Pradesh CPI (Maoist) press secretary Janardhan said in a statement in Hyderabad on Tuesday.

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