Wayanad: Over a month-long sparring that started on September 28 after the attack on the office of Kerala Forest Development Corporation (KFDC) at Kambamala, near Thalappuzha, Wayanad, police nabbed two Maoist cadres without much bloodshed.
Sources said there was a shootout between police and the ultras, when the cops surrounded the house of a farmer at Periya near Thalappuzha. However, realising the forces' upper hand, Maoists, backed out.
When the combined force of Thunderbolt commandos and Special Operation Group (SOG) surrounded the house; the five-member group of Maoists was having food. There was a strict order to ensure casualties are avoided. The information was elicited from the Maoist informer who was arrested by police the other day from Kozhikode district.
Police brass, who were leading the Maoist hunting including DIG (Special Operations) Putta Vimaladitya, and DIG (Kannur Range) Thomson Jose were in the dock, after they failed to apprehend the ultras. District Police Chief Padam Singh had been paying recurring late-night visits to the region to monitor the ongoing raids in the interiors of forests to find out the Maoist camp in the jungle, sources said. Police even used a helicopter and drones for surveillance.
Adding to the pressure on the police, 168 workers of the Kambamala tea plantation division under KFDC also had observed a strike recently demanding protection from the ‘gun-wielding’ Maoists.
An official, who preferred anonymity, told Onmanorama that police heaved a sigh of relief on Tuesday night when two of the Maoists were nabbed by the Thunderbolt officers. “As we had failed to track them even after spotting them many times at different places, we were desperate to catch them,” he said.
The commandos are still on the combing operations based on the inputs from the arrested Maoist cadres Unnimaya and Chandru. DIG Thomson Jose would also join in the interrogation. The house of the farmer from where the Maoists were taken into custody was put under tight security.
Police were under fire over the killing of two Maoist leaders, the central committee member Kuppu Devaraj and another woman leader Ajitha, in a shootout at the Karulayi forests near Nilambur, Malappuram district, in November 2017. In another incident on March 7, 2019, CP Jaleel, a newly inducted Maoist cadre was killed on the premises of a resort at Vythiri, Wayanad.
