Maoist leader Soman was arrested by the Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) at Shoranur railway station in Palakkad district. Soman is a leader of the Kabani Dalam of the Western Ghats Special Zone Committee of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist). He hails from Kalpetta, Wayanad district.
Soman was going to Ernakulam from Shoranur on Saturday night. Meanwhile, the anti-terrorist squad surrounded the railway station and nabbed him. Soman is accused in several criminal cases, including the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA). Since 2011, he has been working as the Maoist commander of Kabani Nadukani Dalams.
A few days ago, communist terrorist Manoj alias Ashiq was arrested in Ernakulam. Soman was reportedly arrested based on the information received from Manoj.
The ATS had received information that Maoist terrorist groups were operating in the Aralam Farm area. Based on this, monitoring and inspection continued. Meanwhile, Soman and Manoj were arrested. The authorities have been searching for them for the past few years.
The Aralam Farm and Wildlife Sanctuary is a forest area spanning 55 sq. km on the slope of the Western Ghats in the Kannur district, with headquarters near Iritty. Tourists need prior permission from the Forest Department to enter Aralam.
The ATS had found that Manoj was a member of a Maoist gang that operates in the Malabar districts of Kerala. The police announced a reward for information about the gang, including Manoj. Soman was brought to the ATS headquarters in Nedumbassery (near Cochin International Airport) and is being interrogated in detail.
Two weeks ago, Manoj, a native of Viyyur in Thrissur, was arrested from Ernakulam South Railway Station, which was under ATS surveillance. He came to collect money to propagate Maoist ideologies from Brahmapuram, Ernakulam.
Manoj was caught from inside the train by a team led by ASP Taposh Basumatary IPS of the Special Operations Group. The Maoist was arrested while aboard a train heading back to Wayanad via Kozhikode. Manoj is an accused in fourteen UAPA cases.
Manoj had gone underground after the recovery of land mines from Makimala, Wayanad. He had been under surveillance by the ATS, which enabled them to apprehend him. His mother had reportedly filed a complaint at the Kazhakkoottam Police Station, stating that her son was missing and had links with Maoists. Since then, he had been under surveillance.
ATS said Manoj became a follower of Maoist ideology while in college. When he disappeared under mysterious circumstances, he was a Students Federation of India (SFI) worker and had completed his B.Tech from Calicut University in Kozhikode. Manoj was a postgraduate philosophy student at Kerala University’s Karyavattam Campus in Thiruvananthapuram when he went missing in February 2023.
Though he was an energetic SFI worker during his studies at Kozhikode, Manoj became politically inactive when he reached Thiruvananthapuram. He stayed outside the campus. Manoj told his friends he was moving to Ernakulam after securing a job there. Police recovered Maoist pamphlets and books from where he lived.
The police found that Manoj had joined the Maoist group and was active in the forests of Malabar. After joining the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army (PMLA), he underwent training in handling weapons, including automatic rifles. Manoj was spotted by people in Wayanad and Kannur, along with Maoists. When he was arrested, his hands were pale and greased, which was due to the handling of rifles like AK-47s.
ATS suspects that Manoj was involved in the attack on the Kerala Forest Development Corporation (KFDC) office at Kambala in Wayanad in October 2023. He is wanted in connection with the recovery of lethal explosives laid by Maoists on the patrolling paths used by the Kerala Thunderbolt unit at Makkimala last month. Officials suspected that the explosives were land mines and gelatin sticks that were later neutralised.
Manoj and his gang fired at a Thunderbolt unit patrolling the Chapparam vanvasi settlement at Periya in Wayanad in November 2023. Two top cadres (Chandru and Unnimaya) of the Banasura Dalam of the five armed militants were arrested. The police confiscated four arms from them, including an AK47 and country-made guns.
Kuppu Devarajan, CPI (Maoist) central committee member, and Ajita, aka Kaveri, both natives of Tamil Nadu, were killed in a clash between police and Maoists inside the Nilambur forests, Malappuram in November 2016. Devarajan, a central committee member of the banned outfit, was also in charge of the tri-junction area of Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.
Devarajan’s brother Babu Devarajan, Revolutionary Marxist Party of India (RMP) leader K.K. Rema, and former Naxalite leader Grow Vasu said it was a fake encounter as no policeman was injured in the incident.
So-called pro-radical and human rights activists demonstrated in front of the Kozhikode Government Medical College Hospital, demanding a post-mortem investigation conducted in front of a magistrate. When the demonstrators began yelling slogans and attempted to storm inside the mortuary, a police squad stepped in. As a result, there was a two-hour brawl between the protesters and the police.
Rema is the widow of Revolutionary Marxist Party founder late T. P. Chandrasekharan. A CPM hit squad hacked Chandrasekharan to death in May 2012, inflicting 51 deep incisions inflicted using swords on the head and face. A few days after Chandrasekharan’s murder, Pinarayi Vijayan remarked that traitors are always traitors, an indirect reference to Chandrasekharan’s exit from the Communist Party of India Marxist (CPM) party back in 2008.
Rema contested from the Vadakara constituency in Kerala during the 2021 state assembly elections and is now an MLA. RMP is now allied with the United Democratic Front (UDF), including the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) and Congress.
In March 2019, C.P. Jaleel (a resident of Pandikkad, Malappuram) was killed in a clash between Maoists and Kerala Police Thunderbolt troops at a private resort in Lakkidi, Wayanad. Jaleel absconded for Years.
In November 2023, a Thunderbolt team captured Chandru and Unnimaya from a forest near Thalappuzha, Wayanad. They were top cadres of the Banasura Dalam of the Communist Party of India (Maoist).
Another Maoist leader, Velmurugan from Tamil Nadu, was killed in the forests near Meenmutty in Wayanad in November 2020. The patrol team recovered a .303 rifle near his body. Velmurugan was an expert in handling arms and propagating Maoist ideology.
Maoists Sreemathi, Suresh, Karthi and Manivasam, hailing from Chikkamagaluru, were killed during an encounter with Thunderbolt in October 2019.
Malappuram native C.P. Moiteen and Santosh from Tamil Nadu are the remaining Maoist leaders in Wayanad.
