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From annihilation of class enemy to contract killings

From annihilation of class enemy to contract killings

Author: Rajeev P I
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: February 2, 2005
URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=63890

Bands of renegade Naxal outfits kill for factional dons, most have names that begin with People's War

In the revolutionary lexicon of a big chunk of Anantapur's Naxalite outfits, the class enemy has taken an entirely different meaning. It now means the enemy of the local factionist don hiring them to kill.

Anantapur police say there are only six such outfits in the employ of factionists, but the Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Committee (APCLC) has documented 11 bands of renegade Naxalites on the prowl in Anantapur, for different factionist dons. That is besides the many smaller and spurious ones that sport the Naxalite label, which mostly sustain themselves by simple extortions.

The Naxalite label is important here. It gives them added threat potential, and some very handy local legitimacy. So, most of these outfits have names with the prefix People's War (PW).

On one side, they do the ordered killing and terrorising for their respective patron dons. On the other, they get into village disputes and occasionally help out with the money and clout, which the don provides, to sustain vital local acceptance. Legitimacy, they know, is the key to survival in this job.

For the dons, the Naxalites began being an integral part of their squads since the mid and late 1990s. These are experienced men who can obviously do the job better than lay recruits, and are a force multiplier. Plus, the added bonus of their local credibility and aura. So, if one don has a Naxalite band working for him, his rival just can't afford not to have one for himself.

All this has put the real McCoy, the People's War (Maoists) engaged in their bloody ideological war elsewhere in Andhra, in a serious fix. ''We have absolutely nothing to do with them, and we warn our cadre. But we take action only if our own genuine cadre get into this,'' says Vara Vara Rao, official spokesman for the Maoists.

Among the renegade Naxal bands now working solely for their respective factions are the People's War (Red Star), which operates exclusively for the Congress dons, and the Telegu Desam Party-owned People's War (ROC), the dreaded private hit squad of the murdered don, MLA Paritala Ravi.

Vara Vara Rao cites Ravi's case to illustrate how the Naxalite cadre are being won over by dons. ''Ravi managed to get K Venkateswara Rao, who was our movement's state secretary, give an impression that the movement must take care of Ravi and his family since they had two martyrs for our cause-his father and brother. But once Ravi's actual designs became clear, particularly after he used the movement to plant a TV bomb and wipe out his rival's family without our consent, we censured Rao, who was later expelled,'' he says.

Even Kondapalli Seetharamaiah (KS), the Naxalite movement's legendary supremo here, was taken in by Ravi, says Rao. ''We had to censure KS too, and strip him of all responsibilities for this area, for his proximity to Ravi,'' he says.

The fall began for the Naxalite movement here, in the early 1990s, with its first splinter squads starting to fight for the dons controlling the very system that they had originally sought to wipe out.

The splintering commenced with the monolithic People's War of KS splitting into two over differences about dilution of ideology and sidling upto factions. KS headed one splinter group and his lieutenant Ganapathy the other. Paritala Ravi's TV bomb divided the bigger KS group and it split to spawn the Vimukti Pattam of Vetti Muthyalu.

But Ravi soon got the latter to split again and the PW Re-Organising Committee (ROC) was born. Soon, the ROC itself split, one headed by Ravi's man Pothula Suresh who used it as the MLA's own private death squad. The other ROC group, led by Ashok, split into the PW (Liberation) group of Ranga Reddy. Within months, the Ashok group split again and the PW (Red Star) headed by the then Congress MLA Kanumkkala Chenna Reddy was born to fight TDP man Paritala Ravi's ROC band.

Not just the dons, but even the police have apparently wisened up to the magic that the Naxalite tag had in much of rural Andhra. ''Some years back, the then SP of Medak himself floated an outfit called CPI-ML Praja Party, roping in renegades and surrendered Naxalites. This was used to take on genuine Naxalite outfits, and punish those helping them without bothering about legal niceties,'' says Vara Vara Rao.

The bands often take on each other in the course of their job. Often with deadly effect.

In 1998, factionist don Peddineni Boya Narayana Swamy had used a 75-member squad from the KS group to finish off seven members of the squad working for his rival Harichandra Prasad, in Kasapuram. But like most professionals, the killer bands patch up quick, even if for survival's sake.

Police records put the outcome of this massacre very succinctly: ''Case was acquitted on 31/3/2004 as both parties effected a compromise, and witnesses turned hostile in court''.

Says a senior police officer: ''Running an effective faction with its influence structures, networks and hit squads takes money and logistics. The factionist dons need to always keep finding enough cash from all possible rackets and operations. This also means they need the right henchmen to help take on their rivals, and it has to go on and on. There's no retirement from factionism, only death.''
 


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