‘Cops abused women Maoists’

Round-table will be convened on November 15 at Jubilee Hall in Hyderabad with the family members of Maoists, students, political parties and intellectuals like Swamy Agnivesh and Arundhati Roy

Ongole: The All India University Students Truth Finding Committee, which was formed by 26 students from 12 universities across the country, to find out the truth behind the encounter that took place on October 24 between Maoists and police on Andhra-Odisha Border, met the family members of Munna alias Pruthvi, son of Rama Krishna aka RK, and Sireesha nee Padma at the former’s residence in Alakurapadu in Tangutur mandal in Prakasam district on Friday.

They alleged that the police forces killed the Maoists, sexually abused women Maoists and tribals. They demanded the government provide details about whereabouts of the tribals who were in custody of police after the incident.

The committee members informed about their tour and started their journey from Hyderabad on November 5. They visited the AOB border, encounter spot near Bejjangi and Ramagurha , neighbouring hamlets of the tribals and interacted with the locals.

A group of the members went to Hyderabad and other places to meet the family members of the other Maoists killed in the encounter while the team consisting of Nainala Satish Kumar from EFLU Hyderabad, Arunank from Osmania University, Valarmani from Periyar University, Silpa from Osmania University and Swetcha from University College of Law, Hyderabad, reached Prakasam district on Friday. They visited the house of Munna and spoke to his mother Sireesha and uncle Kalyana Rao at Alakurapadu in Tangutur mandal.

They noted the details given by the family members, relatives and neighbours about Munna and his temperament towards the struggles of public.

Satish said, “We started our journey after informing the local police. They stopped us at various places and tried to mount pressure on us. Similarly, they also threatened our families and tried to exert pressure on us to cancel the tour. But, we visited the places where encounter and firing took place, but found only a few marks of the bullets impact on the trees. We found that the police forces tried to burn a few evidences on the spot.”

Valarmadi said, “During the interaction, we learnt that several tribals were killed. In all, 15 tribal teenagers went missing from their villages after the incident and their families are searching for them everywhere. We saw in the media that the police air lifted one, Laikona Gulavari, a tribal, but the police didn’t respond to the pleas of his kin when asked about his whereabouts. We found empty whisky bottles, used condoms at the police camping places indicating that the women Maoists and tribals were sexually abused before they were shot. The medical and forensic researchers in our team identified that bullets were fired from a very close range to kill them. We demand the government reveal the truth behind the incident and let the public know what happened there.”

Arunank said, “We also observed that the government didn’t follow the NHRC or the Supreme Court guidelines to carry out the post-mortem. This type of massacre was in force for the past 40 years and we want a political solution to end this. We are organising a round-table on November 15 at Jubilee Hall in Hyderabad with the family members of Maoists, students, political parties and intellectuals like Swamy Agnivesh and Arundhati Roy and publish a report with their inputs.”