Police arrest Maoist sympathiser for links with Malla Reddy

Kochi, Dec 20: Close on the heels of the arrest of a top Maoist leader Malla Raji Reddy at Angamaly, near here, on Monday night, Kerala Police last evening raided the office of a journal, said to be the ''unofficial mouthpiece of Maoist ideology'', and arrested its editor.

A police team, led by Thrikkakara Assistant Commissioner of Police Sethuraman, raided the office of 'People's March' at Kakkanad here and seized around 1,000 copies of the magazine, pamphlets and a computer. The magazine's editor Govindan Kutty was arrested.

Senior police officials told the sources today that Kutty, 65, who had been charged with indulging in unlawful activities, was being interrogated to ascertain any possible connection with Maoist central committee leader Malla Raji Reddy. Kutty was likely to be produced before a lower court in Aluva later today, police said.

Challenging the police action against him, Kutty told mediapersons that he was bringing out a registered magazine, which was not banned. There was no basis for the police action against him, he said.

Kutty, who had been under police surveillance for some time, had been nabbed following the arrest of Reddy, a wanted extremist leader, who was arrested alongwith his companion Suguna, a tribal woman, by an Andhra Pradesh police team at Angamaly on Monday evening.

Reddy, arrested on the basis of a non-bailable warrant issued by a court in Karimnagar district of Andhra Pradesh, was handed over to a police team from Andhra by Aluva Judicial First Class Magistrate Sreekala Suresh last evening.

Reddy and Suguna are to be produced in the Karimnagar court within 48 hours.

UNI