Communist Party of India (Maoist) ‘Western Ghats Special Zonal Committee’ leader Roopesh was sentenced to a total jail term of 62 years, including two 10-year terms for rigorous imprisonment on 13 counts, and a fine of ₹2 lakhs by the Kochi Special Court for the National Investigation Agency (NIA) cases in the Vellamunda Maoist case.
However, because all penalties will be applied simultaneously, the prison sentence will be ten years. Roopesh has been detained since his arrest on 9 July 2015; he will need to spend almost a year and five months in jail before being released in this particular case. He still faces several extremist cases in Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
On 24 April 2014, eight accused, including five Maoist extremists, threatened a police officer at Vellamunda in Wayanad district Kerala for conducting anti-Maoist operations. Around 10.30 pm, the accused assembled with weapons, including AK47s, and trespassed into the house of the Kerala Police officer at Mattilayam in Thondernadu, Wayanad district.
The convicts trained guns on him and his family members. They terrorised the family members and threatened to kill the police officer, alleging that he was helping in anti-Maoist operations and asked the officer to resign from his job.
They set fire to his motorcycle. The accused left pamphlets of CPI (Maoist) inside the house of the police officer and pasted posters on the front wall of the house, calling for armed revolution against the government of Bharat.
Special judge K. Kamanees had found all the accused guilty of offences under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA). The fourth accused, Kanyakumari, and the eighth accused, Babu, were sentenced to six years each, and the seventh accused, Anoop, was given an eight-year jail term. They were all fined between two lakh to twenty thousand Rupees. Kanyakumari, a resident of Karnataka, surrendered before Karnataka NIA officers in 2017.
The court convicted them for being members of a banned terrorist organisation (CPI Maoist), engaging in terrorist activity, and supporting a terrorist organisation, which are scheduled offences under the UAPA. They were also found guilty of offences booked under the Indian Penal Code.
Ajitha, the second accused, was killed in an exchange of fire with the Kerala Police in a forest area of Manchakandi in Agali on 28 October 2019. Mahesh and Sundari, the two accused in the case, are absconding.
In Sep 2017, the NIA appointed one of the defendants in the case as an approver. The NIA Court pardoned Rajesh A. V., the sixth accused in the case. Rajesh is a native of Thikkodi and worked as an autorickshaw driver, according to an NIA official. He used to transport food rations and other necessities to Rupesh’s Maoist party while camping in the Wayanad forest.
The arrest of Roopesh, leader of the ‘Western Ghats Special Zonal Committee’ (WGSZC), his wife Shyna and three other Maoist extremists near Coimbatore based on a tip-off given by the Special Intelligence Branch (SIB) of the Telangana and Andhra Pradesh police in May 2015 was a blow to the attempts of Maoists to strengthen their presence in the tri-junction lamented The Hindu.
Malappuram, Palakkad and Wayanad fall along the Kerala-Karnataka-Tamil Nadu (KKT) tri-junction, an emerging haven for the Maoists. The Maoists operate in the KKT trijunction under the leadership of their WGSZC.
According to an article written by the then-underground Kerala Maoist leader Roopesh, the WGSZC was formed in response to the “exploitation faced by scores of tribals, Scheduled Caste people, landless poor farmers” in these areas. The organisation also benefited from the booming economic prospects of nearby cities like Erode, Coimbatore (Tamil Nadu), Palakkad, Kochi, Kozhikode (Kerala), and Mangalore (Karnataka).
According to reports, the Maoist action is a component of a grand scheme to connect Jharkhand and Wayanad through the so-called Red Corridor.
In April 2018, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) updated the list of districts in the nation afflicted by left-wing extremism (LWE). Three districts from Kerala—Malappuram, Palakkad, and Wayanad—were included for the first time. Never in the past has any district from Kerala been included on such a dubious list.
A September 2018 report provided by the intelligence wing of the Kerala Police’s anti-Naxal [Left Wing Extremism] squad intelligence, the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA) (the armed wing of the CPI (Maoist), had strengthened its armed wing in five districts of Kerala. Kannur and Kozhikode are the new entries, while Palakkad, Wayanad, and Malappuram are included in the list mentioned earlier.
The report also stated that the decision to strengthen five “branch committees” in these five Districts was made at a meeting attended by members of the party’s “central committee” and the “Dandakaranya Special Zonal Committee (DKSZC).” They created revolutionary people’s committees in their guerrilla base areas.
Maoists launched large recruitment drives aimed at young people. Numerous young people, especially law students in the southern districts, were allegedly indoctrinated and were given systematic brainwashing in Marxism, Maoism, and Ambedkar ideology. When the government or police take action, naxalites’ front groups pose as human rights NGOs.
Sundari, aka Geetha, aka Sindu, continues to terrorise Vanvasis. In February 2019, a CPI-Maoist armed group consisting of three members visited the home of a Biju in the Kozhikode District’s Jeerakapara hamlet. Sundari led this team.
The intelligence report further stated that, in addition to obtaining food and clothing, gun-wielding cadres had been “taking classes” for 45 minutes to an hour on how the government was neglecting vanvasis in various colonies. The report went on to say that Maoist members had allegedly threatened and blackmailed the management of tourist resorts for ransom.
Reports of Maoist spotting in the jungles of the Western Ghats have picked up recently. Some Maoist terror suspects who were detained were comfortably absconding since 2003. How many ‘central committee’ Maoists from elsewhere in the country have moved into the safety of the (KKT) tri-junction remains unknown.
