MIM Notes No. 202      January 15, 2000

India Murders Top Maoist Guerrillas

MIM received the following statement forwarded by G.N. Saibaba the 
General Secretary of the All Indian Peoples Resistance Forum(AIPRF) 
concerning the brutal killings of three Central Committee members of 
CPI(ML) Peoples War. The Indian government assassinated the comrades on 
December 1, 1999 and falsely stated that it was during an armed encounter 
in the forest area of Karimnagar district in Andhra Pradesh. Please go 
through the statement and circulate it as widely as possible. Please 
condemn the brutal killings of the peoples' leaders and organise 
protests, signature campaigns, and dharnas in every possible way. Also 
send your protest to the governments of India and Andhra Pradesh.

Demand for Immediate Judicial Inquiry; Some Facts About The Karimnagar 
Encounter

With the killing of Comrades Nalla Adi Reddy (Shyam), Arramreddy 
SantoshReddy (Mahesh), Seelam Naresh (Murali), in a fake encounter 
supposedly in Koyyur forest of Karimnagar district, Indian People's 
revolutionary movement has lost finest of its sons. The three comrades, 
along with Comrade Arun, a Squad member, were arrested in Bangalore on 
December 1 and were killed after brutal torture.

The four dead bodies were thrown near Koyyur to concoct an "Encounter" 
story. The state police have also supplied a couple of weapons and other 
paraphernalia to show that it was a real "encounter". However, the police 
story evidently demonstrates its highhandedness in a number of ways:

If it were a real encounter between 18 police personnel and 30 naxalites 
as the police officials want the world to believe, it would have been 
impossible for the police to escape unscathed, inflicting such a huge 
loss on the revolutionary camp.

Unless the police arrested on a specific information and killed the 
comrades in cold blood, it would be impossible to get the comrades at 
that level at one place.

The killing is one of the biggest losses faced by the Marxist-Leninist 
people's movement in India. The three martyred comrades were Central 
Committee members of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) 
(Peoples War), while Comrade Santosh Reddy was the secretary of Andhra 
Pradesh Provincial Committee and Comrade Naresh was the secretary of 
North Telangana Special Zone Provincial Committee.

Comrade Nalla Adi Reddy (48), a very respected and beloved leader of the 
people's movement in Telangana for over 25 years, was born into a middle 
class agricultural family in Kothagattu village of Karimnagar district. 
He was attracted towards the revolutionary politics during his college 
days in early 1970s when the "spring thunder of Naxalbari" was 
reverberating in this part of the country. He joined the movement in 1974 
and carried out the responsibilities at various levels of division, 
district, regional and provincial committees. He was one of those who 
laid the foundations for the peasant movement in Karimnagar-Adilabad 
districts during the dark days of Emergency. He was behind the famous 
Jagityala Jaitrayatra, which corrected the adventurinst deviations of the 
Naxalbari line and set it on the real mass line. In fact, the peasant 
struggles of Karimnagar-Adilabad have blazed the path of the 
revolutionary movement of today.

Comrade Adi Reddy became a member of the AP Provincial Committee in 1980 
and became the PC Secretary in 1984. Thus he was at the helm when the 
movement had seen its upsurge. He, along with some other comrades, was 
arrested in Hyderabad in May 1986 and was implicated in the infamous 
Ramnagar Conspiracy Case. He escaped from Asifabad sub-jail in Adilabad 
district when he was taken for a court case there in September 1988. He 
was in the Central Committee of Peoples War since the early 1990s and was 
handling the movement in Andhra Pradesh.

Comrade Santosh Reddy (40) hails from the historic village of Kadavendi, 
the birth place of the great martyr Doddi Komaraiah, whose blood paved 
the way for the heroic Telangana Peasant Armed Struggle (1946-51). 
Comrade Santosh Reddy started his political life as a student leader in 
the hotbed of radical student's movement, Warangal where he had his 
undergraduate education. Later he had done two post graduate degrees from 
Osmania University in Technology and Philosophy. He earned the love and 
affection of a cross section of students, teaching and non-teaching staff 
of the university. Going underground after being implicated in the famous 
Comrade KS escape case in 1984, Comrade Santosh Reddy went to Khammam 
district and built student, youth and peasant movements there. He was 
arrested in 1986 and tried under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities 
(prevention) Act and was convicted for five years. Released in 1991, he 
once again earnestly joined the movement and became the secretary of the 
AP Provincial Committee during mid 1990s.

Comrade Naresh (41), coming from a middle class family in Jagityal of 
Karimnagar district, was attracted towards revolutionary politics when he 
was doing his course in Electrician at polytechnic in Sircilla. Worked at 
various levels from the grassroots to the PC, Comrade Naresh was known as 
a very militant leader and a strategist. He built the peasant movements 
in Karimnagar and Nizamabad districts before becoming a member of NTSZPC 
and its secretary in 1997.

Along with creating the fictitious story of "encounter" the police top 
brass of Andhra Pradesh and their political bosses have started spreading 
another slander campaign against the movement. The Director General of 
Police of the state himself said that there were differences in the top 
leadership of the party and the rift could have elevated Comrade Adi 
Reddy to the CC secretary position overthrowing Comrade Ganapathi from 
that position.

Nothing could be more ridiculous than this theory which is born out of a 
typical and cynical ruling class experience. The police story was 
evidently faulty and if one wants to believe the story, as put out by the 
DGP and religiously reproduced by the mainstream media, the state DGP was 
not aware of what was happening under his very nose.

While the so-called encounter started at 6.00 is on Wednesday, the DGP 
said, he came to know that there were some dead bodies lying in the 
Koyyur forest around noon. One wonders how the so-called techno-savvy 
state government gets such an important information, with so much delay!

He also said that the district SP could identify two dead bodies and 
since they were important leaders he immediately flew there in a 
helicopter and identified the third dead body then. The local papers also 
carried that the local police did not have any clue on what was 
happening. It was also reported that the villagers did not hear any sound 
of gunfire during the forenoon, when the "encounter" was supposed to have 
taken place.

If one puts together all these bits and pieces of information and 
disinformation, the emerging picture tells that the dead bodies were 
brought from outside and dumped there. According to reliable information, 
Comrade Santosh Reddy reached Bangalore on Wednesday morning and Comrade 
Naresh was in some other area till November 29. Thus, the circumstantial 
evidence tells that all the three were about to meet in Bangalore and 
somebody who knows this might have tipped the police.

In fact, one paper has also reported that a Special Intelligence Bureau 
officer from Karimnagar has been staying in Bangalore for a month now. In 
fact, arresting top leaders in a city or town away from their work place, 
killing them and dumping their bodies in their own areas is not a new 
practice for AP police. In 1993, they arrested Comrade Puli Anjaiah 
(Sagar), the then secretary of AP PC and his wife, Comrade Bhagya in 
Bangalore, killed them there and dumped their bodies in a remote village 
in Warangal district.

These brutal killing of the top leaders of the revolutionary movement is 
part of intensified counter-revolutionary operations under the close 
guidance of the World Bank officials who have been controlling the 
Government Andhra Pradesh.

Even the post-killing behaviour of the police lends weight to the 
apprehension that it was a fake encounter. While the encounter news 
started to spread by the evening of Thursday, the police announced a "Red 
Alert" in the state and started searching all vehicles. The friends of 
the comrades and representatives of various mass organizations were 
stopped on the outskirts of Karimnagar to prevent them from going to 
Peddapalli where post mortem was being conducted. (In fact, the previous 
evening DGP told the press that it would be conducted in another town, 
just to hoodwink them). Simultaneously, the family of Comrade Santosh 
Reddy and several mass organisations were suspecting foul play in post 
mortem and were asking for are-post mortem.

This demand also has a history behind it. The local hospital would not 
have proper facilities for forensic examination and more often than not 
proper professionals would be available. Moreover, the local level 
doctors could be easily threatened by the police to get favorable 
postmortem reports. In the past, there were significant differences in 
the first post-mortem reports conducted at local levels and re-post 
mortem reports at Hyderabad. Thus, Comrade Santosh Reddy's mother 
approached High Court to direct the police to send the dead bodies to 
Hyderabad for a re-examination.

Getting hint of this appeal, the police made great hurry in doing 
postmortem at Peddapalli and prevented the delegation from reaching the 
town before that. The dead bodies of Comrade Adi Reddy and Comrade Naresh 
were given away to their families, with a warning to dispose them soon. 
Only after the dead bodies were taken away the delegation was allowed 
into the town. On the other hand, the public prosecutor informed the 
court that two dead bodies were already handed over and the court can go 
ahead with the directive for the other two bodies!

When the delegation wanted to go to Kothagattu to attend the funeral of 
Comrade Adi Reddy, the delegation, which included Varavara Rao, Vimala 
(revolutionary writers), N V Krishnaiah (former MLA) and J V Chalapati 
Rao (leader of a CPI ML group), was taken into custody. Later in the day, 
the police department press release in Hyderabad says, "Varavara Rao was 
politicising the encounter. He was obstructing Santosh Reddy's mother 
from taking her son's body. He instigated her to file a case against 
police. So the police have taken him into custody as a preventive 
measure"!!

AIPRF demands:

1. A judicial inquiry should be ordered with sitting Supreme Court Judges 
to bring out facts of these killings and the responsible police officers 
be punished accordingly.

2. The Director General of Police of Andhra Pradesh should be dismissed 
with an immediate effect.

3. The revolutionary movement in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and other places 
should be recognised as a socio-economic and political movement of the 
deprived sections of people. The leaders and activists of this movement 
should be treated accordingly.

4. Stop encounter killings and withdraw armed forces from all the areas 
of people's movement.

5. The Co-ordination Centre (formed with top officials of Central Home 
Ministry and the top police officials of Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, 
Maharastra, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa) to carry out these covert and 
overt operations of state repression should be dismantled.

G.N. Saibaba General Secretary, AIPRF PD-50A, Vishakha Enclave,Pitampura, 
Delhi-34, Phone: 011-7466155 (Fax also) Email:

aiprf

bol.net.in : aiprf

hotmail.com

Send protests to His Excellency Mr. K.R. Narayanan President Rashtrapati 
Bhavan New Delhi at following e-mail address: presssecy

sansad.nic.in