Date:10/06/2005 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2005/06/10/stories/2005061005740500.htm

Andhra Pradesh

Maoist leaders sent to police custody

Staff Reporter

Sessions Judge rejects plea for bail

NIZAMABADCONTRADICTORY VERSIONS: The two CPI(Maoist) leaders - Ganti Prasadam and Yamasani Surender - and a member of the Revolutionary Writers' Association, Nellutla Venugopal, were handed over to the One Town police for further interrogation. Admitting the petition filed by the police, the Additional First Class Judicial Magistrate, Rajeswari, permitted the police to take the trio into their custody, on Thursday around 11.30 a.m.

The Additional District Sessions Judge, Mohan Gandhi, earlier refused the bail petition filed by the defense counsel, Gorrepati Madava Rao, on behalf of the naxalite leaders and the RWA members.

Prasadam, the CPI(Maoist) State committee member, and Surender, the party former district committee secretary and four RWA members - Venugopal, G. Pinakapani, V. Chenchaiah and S. Ravi - were arrested by the police recently.

NIZAMABADCONTRADICTORY VERSIONS:

The police said that they were arrested when they were moving suspiciously in their effort to go to the Nallamala forest region near Arsapally on the outskirts of the district headquarter town here on June 2, while the Maoist leaders and the RWA members alleged that the police took them into custody from a guesthouse in Aurangabad on May 30 evening.

They were remanded to judicial custody in the district jail when they were produced before the First Class Judicial Magistrate at Bodhan on June 3.

The RWA leader, P. Varavara Rao, meanwhile, said handing over the naxalite leaders and the Viplava Rachayitala Sangham (RWA) member, Venugopal, for further interrogation was a violation of the Supreme Court guidelines. The Chief Minister, Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, had also categorically said that there would not be any objections in granting bail to the naxalite leaders and the RWA members, he pointed out.

The jail authorities, earlier, did not allow the RWA leader to meet the Virasam members in the district prison.