VIJAYAWADA, March 13: Five Naxalites of the outlawed People's War Group (PWG) and one police constable were killed in a fierce encounter between Naxalites and police at Tallaguda village of Bastar district in Madhya Pradesh yesterday.A group of about 40 PWG Naxalites armed with the latest weapons attacked the Tallaguda police station bordering Khammam district of Andhra Pradesh. The alert policemen inside the station returned fire. In the encounter that followed, five Naxalites andAccording to a report from Bhadrachalam, the Naxalites laid landmines on all roads leading to the police station to prevent additional forces from reaching the area.
The Madhya Pradesh police have alerted their counterparts in Andhra Pradesh. Combing operations have been intensified in the border areas. Police pickets have been posted at various points. Officers of the ``greyhound,'' an elite anti-Naxalite group of the Andhra Pradesh police, plan to visit Prakasham district to keep an eye on the activities of PWG.
The PWG andJanasakthi Naxals have recently stepped up their activities in the district and have also held `people's court' at Gudipudivaripalem, near the district headquarters. Authorities are worried about PWG attempts, confined until now to remote and forest areas, to expand activities to villages. The district administration has provided armed bodyguards to legislators and political leaders who have been threatened by the PWG.
The gunning down of Valetivaripalem Mandal president Chidipotu Lakshmaiah Naidu of the ruling Telugu Desam Party (TDP) by the PWG at Kandakur on February 25 led to a spurt of violence in the coastal town forcing the police to clamp a 48-hour curfew. Although PWG's Narsampet squad commander Sagar declared that the killing of Lakshmaiah Naidu was in retaliation to the murder of two dalits here in 1993, TDP workers ransacked and torched shops and properties of their Congress (I) rivals ``holding them responsible for (Lakshmaiah) Naidu's murder''.
Soon after the killing of the two dalits,Vijayasarathi and Gatta Krishnamurthy in 1993, the Dalit Mahasabha had organised an agitation demanding the arrest of Lakshmaiah Naidu and the Kandakur MLA Divi Sivaram, belonging to the TDP, whom they held responsible for the killings.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
