Kothagudem: Maoists kill woman activist accusing her of being a police informer

Kothagudem: The CPI (Maoist) leadership allegedly killed a woman cadre, who worked as a security team commander in the Andhra-Odisha border area, branding her as a police informer. Andhra Odisha Border Special Zonal Committee (AOBSZC) secretary Ganesh, in a statement issued to the media on Wednesday, revealed about the killing of the cadre Nilsoo alias Bunty Radha (Pallepati Radha), a resident of Balaji Nagar (New Indira Nagar) near ECIL in Hyderabad. He alleged that intelligence officials of AP, Telangana and Chhattisgarh police had planned to harm the Maoists by identifying ideologically weak cadres in the party and organising them as secret operatives to obtain information. As part of their plan, the police trapped Radha and made her work for them. She voluntarily joined the Maoists in 2018 after completing a Diploma in Medical Laboratory Technology (DMLT) course. For the past six years, she was working as a dalam member, military instructor and security squad commander.

Ganesh said she was removed from the post of commander due to indiscipline and crossing the party line on matters of marriage and male-female relationships. As a result, her revolutionary life ended. After Radha joined the Maoists, the police pressurised her family to expel her from the party and offered her brother Suryam a job and money. Suryam became an agent of the police, started working in the intelligence wing and formed a team with Preeti, Raju and Suresh. A few months ago, the police tracked Radha’s mobile phone number and contacted her through one of her friends Mamta and asked her to surrender, but she refused. Ganesh alleged that the police subdued her by threatening to send her family members to jail and kill them. Later, at the behest of the police, Suryam called Radha and told her about the family’s problems and asked her to either surrender or give information to solve the problems.

She agreed to do so and came in contact with intelligence officials of Telangana and Chhattisgarh police and started sharing crucial information about the party leadership and its activities. Radha was directed to form a team with some secret operatives in the party to execute the police plan of eliminating the Maoist leadership, but the party was able to identify them and foil their plot. Some secret operatives were expelled from the party, while some others like Nilsoo were awarded death penalty, he said. It is said that in 2017, Radha’s mother Pochamma lodged a complaint about Radha’s disappearance at Peddabyalu police station in Andhra Pradesh. The NIA is said to be investigating Radha’s disappearance case. She had a bounty of Rs one lakh on her head. Radha’s body was found abandoned in a forest on the Telangana-Chhattisgarh border at Chennapuram in Cherla mandal of Kothagudem district. The local police recovered the body and registered a case in connection with the incident.