Andhra Pradesh arrest led to rich haul of Maoists

MUMBAI: The arrest of one Maoist leader in Andhra Pradesh led to the arrest of close to half a dozen Maoist leaders including Murali Kannampilly, alias Ajith, who was arrested from Pune last week. Malla Raja Reddy a senior Maoist leader was arrested in May by the Andhra Pradesh police. His interrogation led to the police arresting R Roopesh, alias Praveen, and his wife Shyna who were tasked with the spread of the movement in Kerala on May 3. The cops also arrested S Kannan from Madurai and C Veeramani, alias Eswar, and Anoop Mathew George from Kerala.

Pune ATS officials said that from the Roopesh and Shyna’s interrogation they came to know that they were in touch with senior leader Murali Kannampilly who was taking treatment in Pune. Roopesh and Shyna were apparently to travel to Pune to meet Murali. ATS officials said that based on that information the AP counterparts then passed on the information which led to the arrest of Murali along with his aide Ismail Hamza on Sunday from Pune.

Pune Police officials said that they have still not gone for a ‘proper’ interrogation of Murali as he was quite ill and that as of now they have been interrogating Ismail Hamza.

They said that the two were living under more than six different identities in Pune. The arrest of Murali would come as a huge set back to the Maoist movement as in the last ten years the ATS has arrested more than three dozen middle and lower rung leaders from places like Mumbai and Pune.