Seized naxal letters reveal tales of distress, desertions

Letters recovered by the security forces from slain Maoists and encounter sites reveal a lot about the distress conditions that the ultra leftists are operating in. Sanjib Kr Baruah reports.

Letters recovered by the security forces from slain Maoists and encounter sites reveal a lot about the distress conditions that the ultra leftists are operating in.

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Most of the letters are written in Telugu and signed off by one ‘Gangur’, suspected to be Katakan Sudershan alias Anand, and meant for one ‘Shyam’. They were recovered from an encounter site on May 18 near Ganglur in Chhattisgarh’s Bijapur district, a day after eight civilians, including three minors, and a CoBRA commando were killed in the area.

Politburo member Sudershan is also secretary, central regional bureau, CPI (Maoist).

The letters, accessed by Hindustan Times, revealed how the enemy (government forces) “is attacking from all sides and this is going on everywhere.”

The written missives talk of the considerable losses that the CPI (Maoist) had incurred in March. “In March, TPC of Jharkhand attacked our party, resulting in the loss of 10 comrades. One of them was Gopal. He was the one who used to communicate with BBC. The death of Gopal was great loss to us. The plan of attack was jointly planned in a meeting of TPC and enemy,” reveals a letter.

“The same month, another attack by the enemy resulted in the death of nine, including comrade Sudhakar (Ravi) and comrade Pushpa. They all were the members of Khammam-Karimnagar-Warangal divisional committee. This was a great loss.”

Another letter reveals details of an incident happened on March 4 in Potebatpa, south Gadhchiroli, in which five Maoists lost their lives, including ‘Laxman’ from Gamphur, west Bastar. “He was a great leader,” it says.

Yet another letter talks of desertions by CPI (Maoists) cadres due to various reasons, including romance. “One Dev Singh ran away with (a) woman. Also in Gadhchiroli, 10 members — including Sekhar and Vijaya, a married couple — left the party.”

“Those who left are not able to face hardship of the party policy. Some of them have joined the enemy and are attacking us. This may be the failure of party,” the letter says.