Posted on 04/04/2005 11:11:36 AM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
Hyderabad April 3: With peace talks between the government and Maoist guerrillas shattered in Andhra Pradesh, the body count is steadily mounting amid fears that this could turn out to be bloodiest year in recent times.
After eight months of peace last year, the state is again caught in a web of killings and counter killings. Not a single day passes without Maoists killing a suspected police informer, a political activist or a policeman. ‘
And when their guns are silent, the police kill Maoists in gun battles. Maoists then go on the rampage. This cycle of violence and counter-violence has claimed more than 110 lives since January 6, when the eight-month cease-fire broke down, belying hopes raised by the peace process initiated by new Congress government last year.
Terming the Congress government as worse than the previous Telugu Desam Party (TDP) government, the Maoists have resumed their activities with a vengeance.
“The Congress is like sweet poison. While the TDP government always ruled out talks with us, the Congress is talking of peace but killing revolutionaries in stage-managed encounters,” the Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) representative Varavara Rao told IANS.
The situation has worsened to such an extent that Varavara Rao and his two poet and writer colleagues, Gaddar and Kalyan Rao, who took pride in working as emissaries of the Maoists during the first round of talks, now find themselves booked in two cases relating to killings of policemen.
The statistics are astounding. The police claim to have killed about 40 Maoists, including some top leaders. The Maoists say most victims were killed in cold blood.
The Maoists have shot dead an almost equal number of people on suspicion that they were spying for the police.
It is the number of attacks on the police that is causing concern to the government.
Ten policemen have been killed since March 11, when the Maoists attacked a police station at Chilkaluripeta in Guntur district killing seven people, including four policemen. One officer was killed brutally.
On Thursday night, two policemen died in an attack on another police station, at Acchampet in Mahabubnagar district.
Syed Amin Jafri in Hyderabad | April 02, 2005 15:38 IST
A Maoist leader and his wife were killed in an encounter with the police in the early hours of Saturday in Mahbubnagar district in Andhra Pradesh.
Mahbubnagar Superintendent of Police Vikram Singh Mann identified the slain Maoists as Gajji Srisailam alias Santosh, CPI (Maoist) Mahbubnagar district committee member and Nallamala forest area secretary, and his wife and Maoist activist Pushpa alias Venkatamma.
The SP said that following the attack by a group of armed Maoists on Achampet town police station, in which two policemen were killed and another policeman critically injured on March 31, the district police had taken up combing operations. On specific information that the Maoists involved in the attack were hiding in the area abutting Nallamala forests, a special police party organised search and frisking operation at Edukla village.
The police party intercepted an autorickshaw and took the 10 passengers to Gopalpet police station to make inquiries. During interrogation, the couple confessed that they were Maoists.
When they were being brought to Achampet at around 1.30 am, they tried to escape. Srisailam suddenly snatched the pistol of one of the sub-inspectors and fired one round. Pushpa also pounced on one of the constables. The police opened fire on the couple, killing them on the spot.
The SP said that Srisailam was a ruthless killer involved in as many as 14 violent incidents, including the killing of Congress legislator D Raghya Naik in December 2001.
The killing of the Maoist couple came just 10 hours after Director-General of Police Swaranjit Sen visited Achampet to console the families of slain policemen and warned that the Maoists would "have to pay a heavy price for the mindless violence perpetrated by them in the state."
"We have sent a report to the government explaining the escalating activities of the Maoists and recommending that the Naxalite outfit be banned," the DGP had told the policemen.
Naxal kill Cong leader; torch seven buses; one Maoist killed
Hyderabad, Apr 3 (UNI) Naxalites killed a Congress party office bearer torched six state-owned Road Transport Corporation(RTC) buses in Mahaboobnagar District and another bus at Guntur, while one extremest was killed in an encounter with police in Kurnool district of Andhra Pradesh today.
Police here said in Mahaboobnagar District armed naxalites shot dead Atchampeta Mandal Congree President Madhusudana Reddy tonight in retaliation for yesterday's encounter on the outskirts of Achampet in which CPI(Maoist) District Committee member and action team member Gajji Srisailam alias Santosh and his wife Pichhakuntla Venkatamma alias Puspakka were killed.
In protest against the death of Maoist extremists in the alleged fake encounters, the extremists torched six state-owned Road Transport Corporation buses in Mahaboobnagar district and also set ablaze a RTC bus proceeding to Hyderabad from Chilakaluripeta, on the outskirts of Guttikonda of Guntur District.
At Kurnool District, a naxalite Boya Krishna alias Sridhar, a member of Special guerilla Squad-(SGS) of Nallamala (west), was killed in exchange of fire between police party the Naxalites near Bhavapuram village in Kothapally Mandal.
Atmakur police party, who were on vehicle checking duty on Bavapuram-Lingapuram bypass road, came across two men who on being asked to identify themselves, hurled a grenade on the police party.
However, it did not explode. They also fired at the police party and in self defence, police returened fire killing the Naxalite.
The deceased Sridhar was involved in the sensational Vempenta case, in which eight villagers of Vempenta village were brutally axed to death and also involved in a case of bus burning near Bairluti of Atmakur Mandal in Kurnool district.
Police recovered one country-made grenade, three unused cartridges and an unexploded grenade from the encounter scene.
Indo-Nepal railway link snapped
Joynagar, Bihar, Apr 3 (UNI) The lone railway link between India and Nepal was snapped when Nepalese Maoists blew up a bridge on the Joynagar-Janakpur section near Khajauri station today.
Madhubani district headquarter sources said hundreds of pilgrims were stranded at different stations following the suspension of train services.
The Maoist Communist Party of Nepal owned responsibility for the blast according to a message inscribed on the wall near the site of occurrence, the reports added.
It also left behind leaflets calling upon the people to make the ten-day bandh, which began yesterday, a success and claimed that the disruption in train services was caused to enforce the bandh.
8 killed, 20 injured in Nepal violence
Associated Press
Kathmandu, April 2, 2005|09:42 IST
Clashes left at least two soldiers and six communist guerrillas dead in Nepal, and suspected rebels bombed half a dozen targets, injuring 20 people ahead of an 11-day nationwide general strike that began on Saturday, officials said.
Businesses were closed in most areas of the Himalayan kingdom because of the strike, called by the communist rebels to protest King Gyanendra's takeover of the government on February 1 and imposition of a state of emergency.
Sporadic fighting across the country on Friday killed at least six rebels and two soldiers, police and army officials said on condition of anonymity.
Rebels were blamed for a series of blasts at government buildings and a marketplace that left at least 20 people injured on Friday in Nepalgunj, a town with a large guerrilla presence about 500 kilometres west of Kathmandu, police official Kumar Gautam said.
Three of the injured were in serious condition, Gautam said.
Many of Nepal's roads and highways were deserted because of the strike. Soldiers escorted about five buses out of Biratnagar, 550 kilometres (340 miles) east of Kathmandu, a highway patrol official said on condition of anonymity.
Security forces were on alert and highway patrols were stepped up in a bid to foil the strike.
King Gyanendra has said he had to assume absolute power because successive governments had failed to counter the rebels, who have been fighting since 1996 to abolish the monarchy and set up a communist state. The insurgency, which the rebels say is inspired by Chinese revolutionary Mao Zedong, has claimed more than 10,500 lives.
Immediately after taking over the government, the king imposed a state of emergency, suspended civil liberties and put several politicians in jail.
A top politician, Girija Prasad Koirala, was freed from house arrest on Friday, and at least 257 other people detained in the wake of the king's seizure of power were released.
Koirala's Nepali Congress party — Nepal's largest — has been leading protests demanding that Gyanendra restore democracy.
Hundreds of politicians and their supporters have been jailed for protesting in the streets or rounded up from their homes after the takeover.
Koirala and other top political leaders were held under house arrest, while rank-and-file activists were thrown in jail.
Ex-Indian Army soldier among 10 killed in Nepal
A former soldier of the Indian Army was among 10 people killed in separate incidents across Nepal a day before an 11-day shutdown announced by Maoists began Saturday.
While the army said it was stepping up patrols on highways along with aerial surveillance to foil attempts by the Maoist insurgents to cut off supplies to Kathmandu Valley, night curfew was imposed in some districts in western Nepal.
Among 10 people killed in separate incidents were six Maoists, two security personnel and two civilians, the Kathmandu Post daily reported Saturday.
Ram Lal Moktan, a 40-year-old former Indian Army man, was among those killed, the Post said. Three Maoists forced him out of his house in Dhankota district in eastern Nepal and gunned him down Friday.
The other victim was a rickshaw-puller who died when blasts went off in Nepalgunj in southern Nepal, targeting at least three government offices.
Three outlaws and two security personnel were killed in Gaighat in eastern Nepal when the insurgents attacked a security patrol while three more rebels were shot dead in different areas.
The Maoists were also reported to have stopped an ambulance in Surkhet district in midwestern Nepal, forcing the patient to get down and setting it on fire.
The Maoists, who have been waging a nine-year-old armed uprising, want to abolish monarchy and establish a communist republic.
Here is my question. What is the difference between "Maoist" and Communist? Is someone trying to make Poo smell like roses or what?
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