RAIPUR: Are the senior leaders of the banned CPI (Maoist) including their Central Committee (CC) members who battled with serious ailments, dying because they couldn’t get access to safe provinces to secure better treatment?If the sources in the Bastar police force are to be believed, besides the heavy casualties suffered by guerrillas, their top leaders including frontline members of the Maoist central team evidently couldn’t reach out to guarded places for proper medical attention to their illness and were said to have breathed their last somewhere in remote hideouts.One cogent reason behind such a vulnerable situation for them is the strong presence of security forces, aggressive anti-Maoist operations with the renewed strategy and effective intelligence inputs targeting the rebels in the areas considered to be the latter’s strongholds in the conflict-ridden Bastar zone and adjoining border areas of Telangana, Maharashtra and Odisha.Owing to serious ailments the Maoists had in recent years lost senior hardcore members including key CC members—Purnendu Shekhar Mukherjee, Akki Raju Hargopal, Narendra Singh, Yapa Narayan alias Haribhushan and Katti Mohan Rao. Sharda, wife of Haribhushan and Bharatakka, wife of Mohan Rao also died during the Covid-19 epidemic. One of the most commanding Maoist leaders and CC member Ramanna who was active for decades in Bastar, and also remained secretary of the Dandakaranya Special Zonal Committee died owing to cardiac arrest. They were cited as the masterminds of several big attacks inflicted by Maoists.TNIE learnt that some of these leaders were seeking treatment for their illness somewhere in the forested terrain of south Bastar.
Source link
