ANANTAPUR: State general secretary of Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Committee S. Seshaiah on Wednesday urged the CPI (Maoist) party leadership to clarify to the people and the media about the landmine blast in Chhattisgarh State on Tuesday, in which 26 members of Salva Judum, an anti-naxalite forum, were killed and several others injured.

Clarification needed

Talking to mediapersons here Prof. Seshaiah said it was the responsibility of the Maoist leadership to issue a clarification on the incident and the circumstances leading to it. Otherwise, it would create misunderstanding among the people. He also asked the Maoist leadership not to repeat such incidents in future.

With the help of Salva Judum the State and Central Governments had taken up operation green hunt and operation rakshak against the Maoists. Led by Naga battalion and CRPF the two operations were purely aimed to oppressing the Maoist movement. The Salva Judum was also funded by the State and Central Government and the innocent tribals were being instigated against the Maoists.

The landmine blast was a fallout of oppressive measures being implemented by the Chhattisgarh and Central Governments against the Maoists in the area.

Resistance

The incident occurred only to resist the oppressive measures, he said. Leader of Salva Judum Mahendra Karma was a Congress legislator, Prof. Seshaiah mentioned.

Further, the APCLC leader likened Salva Judum to organisations like Cobras and Tigers in Andhra Pradesh bred and nurtured by the police. A team of national democratic and rights organisations had visited the area in November last and had brought out facts. But, newspapers had not published the findings properly, he said.

 http://www.hindu.com/2006/03/02/stories/2006030205100300.htm