Maoists join hands with goons to extort money from people and carry out sexual atrocities on women.
Hyderabad: A culture of anarchy is prevailing among Maoists in tribal dominated Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh. The Maoists are joining hands with local goons in forcible collection of money, besides committing sexual atrocities on women. This has been revealed by CPI ML (Maoists) Central Committee (CC) member Sudhakar alias Satwaji, 59, who surrendered to the police this week.
Sudhakar, who looked after Maoist activities in Jharkhand, Bihar and parts of Chhattisgarh for about a decade, gave up along with his wife, Aruna, alias Madhavi, 43, before Ranchi police last week and completed his surrender formalities before Telangana police who have declared a cash reward of Rs 25 lakh on his head and Rs 10 lakh on his wife.
Sudhakar, who was underground for close to three decades since 1989, is one of the key decision makers of the top brass of Maoists and is known to be behind several armed attacks on security forces in the two states. He spoke to media in the presence of Telangana DGP Mahender Reddy in Hyderabad on Wednesday and said that he was fed up with the prevailing “anarchy” among the Maoists.
“I have decided to come out of the party (Maoists) purely because of anarchy and indiscipline at all levels, and the misuse of guns for making money by some cadre,” he said. Sudhakar revealed a new aspect of lack of security to women among the Maoist cadre. The top leadership was not in a position to take action against the errant elements as they had no control over the situation.
Sudhakar is the latest to quit the banned militant outfit after the aging CC secretary Ganapathy was replaced with Keshav Rao last year. However, the situation hasn’t improved after the leadership change as the local Maoists have no regard for the top leadership, said Sudhakar. He also revealed a new angle that there was a rift between the local tribal Maoists and the non-tribal top leadership of Maoists.
“There is no control over the local Maoists who are into extortions and money collections and morally, too, they are degraded as there are several complaints of harassment of women, but there is no one to take action. I have written a letter to our CC, but there is no response. Though I am a CC member, no one listened to me, so I have decided to quit the party,” he said.
Sudhakar admitted that an amount of Rs 25 lakh seized from his brother by police immediately after demonetisation two years ago was sent by the party. Sudhkar disclosed that several women leaders of Maoists had committed suicide recently as they faced harassment in one or the other form. They include Keshav Rao’s wife Rama who died in 2010.
South Bastar division committee member Chandana, squad members Munni and Chukki and Chhattisgarh state committee member Bhagya Lakshmi, too, are among those who committed suicide. However, Aruna, who was standing next to Sudhakar, said that as far as she was concerned, she had never come across such complaints in Chhattisgarh. Sudhakar stuck to his statement.
Sudhakar told the police that the Maoists were strong only in Chhattisgarh and that they had about 2,000 armed Maoists. This number varies from the estimates of the Union Minister of Home Affairs which put the figure at just around 300-400. However, Telangana police concurred with the information given by Sudhakar on this.
Presently, the Maoists’ CC is dominated by Telugu speaking people–11 from Telangana and two from Andhra. Gradually, the ideological hold over the party by the CC is slipping and the local committees, mostly dominated by the tribal members, are taking their decisions, according to Sudhakar. Recently, another Maoist CC member Malla Raji Reddy, alias Sattenna, too, surrendered to the police.