Kerala to Mangalore: Naxal probe reveals modus operandi

Thiruvananthpuram, May 6: The investigations being conducted following the arrest of five Maoists in Coimbatore has opened up the Pandora's box and startling details about their operations especially in Kerala have come out.

North Kerala was their target and led by their leader, Roopesh, they had planned heavily on infiltrating into the tribal belts and setting up full fledged cells, investigators informed OneIndia.

Setting up the Kerala base:

The planning was at its initial stages and over a period of time, the Maoists wanted to set up a fully operational base in Kerala. The idea was to set up a base and then link to other parts of South India. There was a lot of support that this team arrested was getting from the naxals operating out of Jharkhand, police investigations have revealed.

In South India, the Western Ghats Special Zonal Committee of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) was behind the entire operation. They were targeting the tribals in various parts of the state and had even looked at setting up operations along the Kabini.

Targetting the landless farmers of Pallakad, Kochi, Erode and Kozhikode was prime on their agenda. They were telling the tribals to take up arms against the projects aimed at developing economic zones.

They had even sought to target farmers in Karnataka and there was a special emphasis on Mangalore as well. Mangalore has been witnessing a lot of developmental activity in the past couple of years and the naxals had planned on targeting the farmers by telling them the government was robbing from them.

Several announcements were made:

Although Kerala and Karnataka have not witnessed a major naxal attack, the intention was clear. Investigations have revealed that there were nearly 23 crimes reported in the past couple of months and all were aimed at sending out a signal to the establishment.

In Waynad a police party had been fired upon. Several pamphlets had been distributed with Maoist literature in which there are clear mentions about the uprising and an upcoming arms struggle.

Several members of the naxal group have been identified by the police. Prominent among them are Vikram Gowda, Suresh A, Latha, Kanya and Mahesh.

The Southern corridor:

The primary intent of the naxals was to set up a full fledged Southern Corridor. This corridor would link Kerala with Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.

The naxals felt that there was potential scope for them to launch operations in South India and use the farmer land issue as a stepping stone.

They were in the process of procuring arms and explosives. Several arms that have been seized from them were of Chinese make. This was found to be sourced from Tamil Nadu through former sympathizers of the LTTE.

OneIndia News