The Hindu : 'Busted PW training camp dangerous to security'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, May 09, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Andhra Pradesh

'Busted PW training camp dangerous to security'

By G. Narasimha Rao

VISAKHAPATNAM MAY 8. The plenum and training camp, along with an arms manufacturing unit, which is permanent in nature, organised by the People's War atop Chitrakonda under Kalimela police station limits in Malkangiri district in Orissa, which was busted on Sunday by a joint force of the Orissa and Andhra Pradesh police, has been described as dangerous to national security.

"We have seized plenty of documents, CDs, video tapes and diaries, containing a lot of secret information.

We cannot reveal the contents but the camp was dangerous to national security," the Superintendent of Police of Malkangiri, S. Devadatta Singh, told The Hindu on Thursday, when contacted on telephone. There must have been some casualties on the side of naxalites since bloodstains were found in two tents of the training camp. Some top-level PW leaders must have attended the plenum and camp.

The police assumed so since some of the books and literature they found at the site could be read and understood only by well-learned and sophisticated persons only. The number of naxalites at the camp was around 60, while 40 others present could be helpers. The naxalites also laid a badminton court and a volleyball court in the camp.

Among the arms seized at the camp was a 55 mm. mortar taken away by the naxalites during a raid on the Kalimela police station in August 2001. (Incidentally it was brought back to the same police station along with other equipment seized at the camp).

The Chitrakonda hill, about 100 km. from Malkangiri, had been cleared and combing was on in the adjacent area, Mr. Singh said. "The situation is under control.''

According to him, there was an exchange of fire between the naxalites and the AP police on Sunday during which a Reserve Sub-Inspector was killed. Then the Orissa police exchanged fire with the naxalites on Monday and Tuesday.

The naxalites had escaped from Chitrakonda taking advantage of the terrain which was vast and thick with forests and hills similar to the terrain in the north-east.

"One has to crawl for half-an-hour at a place to reach Chitrakonda. It's more an Army operation,'' Mr. Singh said.

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