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By the latest count, over 220 districts of India are Naxal affected. Without going into the merits of their ideology, one has to admit that the group has committed leaders. At least one of the leaders recently arrested, hails from an established upper middle class family, who has lived with, and for, the group for over 3 decades. The movement was started in the late sixties in West Bengal’s Naxalbari, to fight the entrenched feudal interests who were exploiting the tillers of the land. It spread to Andhra Pradesh where the ground appeared to be fertile for the movement. Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kerala also came on their radar. West Bengal appeared to have succeeded in suppressing the movement by the early seventies.

In Kerala, a new Government which had come to power in 1977 was brought to its knees after the disappearance of a student of the Calicut Engineering College, an alleged Naxalite, who was killed in alleged police brutality. The Chief Minister, who was the Home Minister when the alleged incident took place, had to resign. Two DIGs along with other police officers were prosecuted for the alleged murder of the student. The trial took place in Tamil Nadu to avoid Kerala police influencing the course of the trial.  

Ever since, there is no news about any Naxal movement in Kerela. This could be because the Gulf opened up for the educated Malayalee to earn his livelihood, or because of suitable changes in government policy and police attitudes.  The second Communist government led by EMS Namboodiripad had already introduced land reforms in the State in the late sixties. Most of the former Naxal leaders are today part of civil society, leading respectable lives.   Ajitha, the former firebrand Naxal leader, continues to raise issues affecting the weaker sections through democratic avenues.

The Naxal movement, called the Peoples’ War Group (PWG) in Andhra Pradesh, grew to menacing proportions in the eighties. Politicians, government servants and police officers were targeted by the PWG during this period. Feeling the heat, Andhra Pradesh was the only State which raised an exclusive force for tackling the Naxals. The Greyhounds, a brainchild of KS Vyas, an IPS officer of the 1974 batch, was set up in 1989 to deal with the Naxalites. The growth of this unit was gradual, but steady. Vyas was killed by the Naxals in January 1993, but others who followed him, continued to nurture the unit. Killing of Naxals on the one side, and targeted killings of politicians and police officers and men on the other, continued in Andhra.

This writer was associated with two investigations involving Naxals. The first was the killing of a Member of Parliament, Magunta Subbarami Reddy at his house in Ongole in 1995 by 8 men of the PWG. He was a liquor baron, and was also investing in establishing educational institutions focussing on the poor. Yet he was targeted by the Peoples War Group.  This case was transferred to the CBI, and was finally investigated by the Special Investigation Team handling the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case. This writer was then a DIG in the SIT. Two accused, P Balarama Venkata Ganesh and V Prakash, had been caught and were lodged in the Rajahmundry sub-jail. Two other accused, including the leader Redappa, were gunned down by the police. The investigation team took court’s permission to interrogate them in the sub-jail. Of the two in custody, one was an upper caste Hindu. Sustained interrogation brought out the total commitment of the captured Naxal youth for the PWG. This case ended in conviction in August, 2000, mainly due to the diligent follow up by the CBI in the court. 

The other case was the murder of an Indian Forest Service Officer, Sanjay Kumar Singh, by the Naxals, on 15 February 2002, in Rohtas district of Bihar. Sanjay, a 1991 batch IFS officer, who was then the Divisional Forest Officer of the Shahabad Division, was on a routine inspection in Rehal village when he was surrounded by over two dozen Naxalites. Their main grouse against Sanjay, an upright, fearless and fair officer, was that he was against illegal mining when he was posted in Garhwa, checked theft of Tendua leaves, provided employment to tribals by introducing forestation projects, and checked illegal stone crushing and stone mining in Shahabad Division. Obviously the Naxals in the area were interested in these illegal activities as they were a source of income for them! This case was transferred to the CBI where this writer was a Joint Director in charge of the investigation. This case also ended in conviction.

Thorough investigation and a follow up legal pursuit of cases against the Naxalites should be an important part of any counter-Naxal strategy. This helps in prosecuting the case, unearthing the Naxal network, and also assisting the government in creating awareness on the real intentions and objectives of the Naxalites.