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Kerala Timeline 2016
Date
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Incidents
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January 2 |
NIA has taken over the probe into
the CPI-Maoist attack on a Civil Police officer at Vellamunda
in Wayanad District.
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January 6 |
A grant of INR 10 billion was
approved by the UMHA for 35 worst Naxal affected districts
spread across seven States to carry out development work and augmenting
facilities to fight the CPI-Maoist. The affected areas include
16 districts in Jharkhand, eight in Chhattisgarh, six in Bihar,
two in Odisha and one each in Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and
Telangana. The Ministry allocated fund at the rate of INR 280.57
million per district.
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January 21 |
An inter-State meeting of senior
forest personnel in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala held at Bandipura
in Karnataka, held after an interval of three years, decided to
intensify joint operations to tackle the CPI-Maoist activities
in the forest areas of the region, Pramod G. Krishnan, Chief Conservator
of Forest, (Wildlife, Palakkad), said. The meet offered all assistance
to Police Forces in combing operations to tackle Maoist menace.
As part of this, anti-poaching activities information would be
exchanged each other.
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February 24 |
A Police team conducting search operation exchanged
fire with a three-member CPI-Maoist group in the forests under
Pookkottumpadam Police Station limits in Malappuram District.
The members of the Thunderbolts were conducting search operation
after they came to know that the Maoists had visited a tribal
colony in the area on February 23.
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March 29 |
An armed group of suspected CPI-Maoist cadres
visited a tribal colony at Pattakkarimbu in Malapuram District
of Kerala and convened a meeting of the colony natives in which
the group urged the people to boycott upcoming Kerala Assembly
election and to launch protest against the recent death of a woman
of the colony. A team of 10 persons including three women came
to the colony raising slogans against government and Police. Before
the meeting they laid an iron chain across the walkway to the
colony to prevent colony natives from going outside. The team
left the colony after spending more than an hour there, collecting
rice and groceries from colony natives.
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May 8 |
Kerala Police have launched a poster campaign
in tribal colonies to stymie attempts by the CPI-Maoist to gain
foothold among tribes people, especially in the wake of their
recent calls for boycotting of the upcoming Assembly Elections.
In a bid to counter the propaganda of Maoists, Police in Malappuram
and Wayanad Districts have come up with posters with images of
Maoist atrocities in other states, including violence against
tribals. The anti-Maoist posters by Police have been pasted in
many colonies in Malappuram while officials and social workers
have been pressed in for house visits in Wayanad to neutralize
the anti-election campaign.
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July 24 |
A suspected CPI-Maoist cadre, identified as Mahalingam
(63), was arrested in Tiruchur District and produced before Andipatti
Magistrate V. Baskaran in connection with alleged arms training
on Varushandu hill in 2007. Police said Mahalingam was arrested
on a charge of engaging in arms training. He was released on conditional
bail in 2009. Later, he did not appear before the court. The Police
were in search of him. Acting on a tip-off, a special team arrested
him in Tiruchur on July 24.
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September 26 |
A seven-member armed CPI-Maoist cadre encountered
the Police at Mundakkadavu Adivasi Colony in the Karulai forest
range near Nilambur in Malappuram District. The Police said the
armed group fired at them and escaped into the forest. The Police
too returned fire. But none was injured. The Police reached the
Adivasi colony on a tip-off about the Maoist group's visit to
the colony. The group, consisting of six men and a woman, had
conducted a class for the tribal people at the colony's community
hall. The Police said the meeting was convened by the group's
leader Soman. On seeing the Police, the armed group escaped through
the back exit by making the Adivasis as human shield and shouting
Maoist slogans against democracy.
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October 9 |
The SFs of Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu decided
to launch a joint operation, following specific intelligence information
that CPI-Maoist had increasingly been using the forest tri-junction
of the southern states as a safe haven. The decision was taken
at a high-level meeting held in Kochi in Ernakulam District of
Kerala, in the wake of the arrest of suspected ISIS sympathisers
in Kerala and the surging Maoist infiltration into South Indian
States. Earlier, intelligence agencies had received information
about a secret meet of the Maoists held in Wayanad on September
14, which was attended by a Maoist 'central committee' member
who was reportedly hiding in the tri-junction area. At the high-level
meeting, a specific strategy was laid out detailing the role of
the security formations of each State, and modalities were worked
out for preventing Maoists from hiding in the border Districts
of Kerala and Karnataka, besides Nilgiris in Tamil Nadu. "We received
information from reliable sources that Maoists advancing North
Indian states like Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh were using the tri-junction
area as hideout. The infiltrating extremists include senior Maoist
leaders who control regional operations. A joint action is needed,
considering the possibility of Maoists crossing the border and
escaping to another State when the police force of a particular
state launches crackdown," a senior officer said. However, CRPF
DG, K Durga Prasad said that ever since SFs intensified their
crackdown, threat from LWEs had come down in the Southern States.
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October 22
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A huge flex board displaying images of 32 suspected
CPI-Maoist cadres and seeking the cooperation of public in arresting
them, has been erected by Police and Forest Department, at a check
post on the Kerala-Tamil Nadu Border. The board was put up in
the wake of reports of infiltration of suspected Maoists, who
held a secret meeting in a village in Kerala, near the Tamil Nadu
Border last month, they said. Police and Forest Department officials
put up the board to enable the public to identify the Maoists,
who include a few women, and to pass on information they might
have, they added.
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October 28 |
CPI-Maoist cadres operating the Nilambur area
in Malappuram District have issued warnings to those who are `acting
as `informers' of the Police and other intelligence agencies'.
This was disclosed in the first issue of Chenkad, (Red Forest),
the official mouthpiece of the Nadukani squad of the CPI-Maoist.
According to the publication the PLGS had warned one Kochu Ravi,
who allegedly gather information for the Police and spread lies
about the Maoist movement among the tribals living in the Pattakkarimbu
colony.
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November 24 |
Two CPI-Maoist cadres, including a woman, were
killed in an encounter with the Kerala Police, inside the forests
at Padukka under Nilambur forest range in Malappuram District.
The encounter occurred around noon during a combing operation
carried out by a 60 member Police team, including commandos attached
to Kerala's elite special force Thunderbolt and anti-LWE wing.
The team spotted around 10 Maoists at Kadannakapu and asked them
to surrender. A gunfight followed in which two persons were killed
while other members of the group fled the spot. The deceased are
identified as Kuppu Devaraj alias Shanker, a senior Maoist leader
and 'central committee member' of the Maoist outfit and Ajitha
alias Kaveri, a woman leader. Officers said the combing operation
will continue to stop the fleeing Maoists from regrouping. SFs
had specific information about movement of Maoists in the area.
They had brought Nilambur forest region under surveillance after
suspected Maoists opened fire at a police team a month ago. The
Maoists have been frequenting the area and interacting with the
locals at Mundakkadavu colony. The Police troop had conducted
a massive search operation a couple of weeks ago in the forest
after intelligence inputs on a possible grouping of Maoists led
by Deveraj, but could not find anyone, Deveraj was masquerading
as Kuppu Swami, Rayanna, Balaji, Yogesh in the forests of several
States carrying a reward of INR 700,000 and INR 1 million announced
by Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh Governments respectively.
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November 25 |
The Kerala Police, intensified the search for
the CPI-Maoist cadres who could have escaped November 24 encounter
with Thunderbolt Commandos in the forest in Nilambur in Malappuram
District, in which two extremists were killed even as the CPI,
rights groups and several influential personalities protested
the State's "Maoist hunt" and allegations came up to the effect
that the encounter might have been fake. Sources in the Police
said that the combing operations were not limited to forests under
the Karulayi Forest Range in Nilambur where the gunfight between
the Maoists and the Commandos had reportedly taken place but a
large number of personnel were engaged in the efforts in the areas
contiguous to the Nilambur forests in Palakkad, Kozhikode and
Wayanad Districts. Those killed in the encounter, according to
sources, were Kapu Devaraj, a 'central committee member' of the
CPI-Maoist and chief coordinator of the outfit's Kerala operations,
and a woman activist, Ajitha alias Kaveri. Both were said to be
natives of Andhra Pradesh. Reports also said that a third Maoist,
probably a top functionary from Kerala, was killed in the gunfight
or had escaped with serious injuries.
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November 28 |
The Department of Intelligence has issued a warning
in Kasargod District, that there is a possibility of backlash
by naxals. The Policemen working in Districts which are
facing threat from Naxals have been asked not to patrol
the streets at night alone. The department has also suggested
that teams comprising Police SI and ASI should alone conduct night
patrolling and that during patrolling, the officers should without
fail carry guns with them. The department said that Police Stations
like Adur, Bedaga, Badiyadka, Rajapuram, Vellarikundu, Cheemeni,
and Ambalattara are located on the borders of thick forests. It
said possibility of Naxals crossing over through forests
in Karnataka to this side and attacking the Police Stations cannot
be ruled out. Based on this advice, the Policemen are on high
alert in forest areas in Kannur, Palakkad, Wayanad, Kozhikode
and Malappuram Districts. The case relating to exchange of fire
between Policemen and CPI-Maoist cadres at Nilambur has been handed
over to crime branch, which has formed a special team for the
purpose. The wallpapers pasted inside the toilet of a hotel at
Thiruvananthapuram have warned Policemen of revenge attacks. Policemen
are trying to find out whether this writing was related to the
firing incident at Nilambur.
The District Police stepped up surveillance following
suspicion that a CPI-Maoist activist, injured during the Police
action at Nilambur in Mallapuram District. "We have put him under
surveillance though we don't have any confirmation so far," a
senior Police officer said. According to reports the Police have
received, the person is undergoing treatment in a private hospital
hailed from Puthenvelikkara area in Ernakulam District and is
a dalit activist. The members of the investigating team probing
the presence of Maoists at Nilambur, including the NIA had questioned
the suspected activist at Kodungallur.
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November 29 |
In the recent encounter inside Karulayi forest
in Nilambur in Malappuram District of Kerala, in which two CPI-Maoist
cadres were killed, the Police have come out with fresh evidence
to prove that the Maoists had used automatic weapons including
AK- 47 to open fire against Police squad. Earlier, Police recovered
empty shells used in pump-action shotgun allegedly used by Maoists
for the attack. Police are of the opinion that the AK 47 rifles
were used by used by the bodyguards of Devraj, who is a senior
leader of the party. However, the gang members managed to take
away all weapons with them while escaping during the encounter,
Police said.
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December 5 |
A local court dismissed a petition seeking re-post-mortem
on the bodies of two CPI-Maoist in Malappuram District. District
and Sessions Judge S S Vasan in Manjeri D rejected the plea in
this regard by Sreedharan, brother of slain Maoist leader Kuppuswamy
Devaraj and some human rights activists, public prosecutor P Suresh
said. The court observed that the autopsy was conducted by experts
in Kozhikode Medical College Hospital and there was no need for
a re-post-mortem.
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December 8 |
A couple of hand-made posters by the CPI-Maoist
'Bhavani Dalam' surfaced at Mele Ommathampatti at Pudur Panchayat
in Attappady in Palakkad District, demanding the withdrawal of
Kerala Thunderbolts Commandos from Attappady. Alleging that State
Government was trying to suppress the Naxals, the posters
accused the ruling party of killing their leaders in the recent
encounter at Nilambur in Malappuram District.
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December 11 |
Visuals found on the data storage devices that
the Kerala Police had recovered from the Karulayi jungle in Nilambur
in Malappuram District after two CPI-Maoist cadres were killed
in encounter reportedly showed LWE leaders asking followers to
oppose the Constitution and Government and to prepare for armed
struggle. Kuppu Devaraj, a 'central committee (CC) member' of
the CPI-Maoist who was killed along with woman extremist Ajitha
in the encounter with the Thunderbolt commandos of the Kerala
Police on November 24, is seen in the video found in one of the
pen drives asking the extremists to focus attention on colonies
of Adivasis and to take care not to lose their support. The visuals
found on the pen drives recovered from the Maoists' camp have
appeared in the visual media of Kerala in the particular context
of the suspicion aired by certain rights groups and the CPI, second
biggest partner in the CPI-M led ruling LDF, that the Police could
have killed the two Maoists in unilateral firing in a fake encounter.
A dossier compiled by the Kerala Police on Kuppuswamy
Murthy alias Kuppu Devarajan was released in Kollam District.
The top CPI-Maoist leader killed by the Police in an alleged encounter
inside the Nilambur forests on November 24, shows that Kuppu was
trained in arms handling by the LTTE during the late 1980s.
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December 12 |
Two suspected CPI-Maoist cadres were spotted at
Chenappadi near Kalikavu inside Nilambur Forest region in Malappuram
District. A joint team of anti-naxal squad of Police and
Kerala Thunderbolts commandos carried hours-long search in the
area. According to the Police, it was a worker of Pullakode Estate
who had first noticed the men with backpacks and alerted the local
people and Police. Following this, the Police team led by CI of
Nilambur, Sunil Pulikkan and Thunderbolts personnel carried out
a search in the deep forest areas. After the recent encounter
of two CPI-Maoist cadres with Police which culminated in the death
of two Naxals, Police have intensified vigil in the region.
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December 13 |
A clerk at the Government Polytechnic College
at West Hill in Kozhikode District, who had assisted the relatives
of a CPI-Maoist cadre, killed in an alleged encounter in Nilambur
forest, in securing his body from the mortuary and negotiated
with the Police on behalf of human rights organisations has been
placed under suspension pending inquiry by the Director of Technical
Education for his alleged links with LWE groups. Rajeesh Kollankkadi
(36), of Vadakara, was suspended from service based on a report
submitted by Uma Behra, Commissioner of Police, Kozhikode city.
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December 19 |
One Nadeer Gul Mohammed was detained by the Police
for his suspected links with CPI-Maoist in Kozhikode District.
The Police said they detained Nadeer as the Aralam Police in Kannur
District had earlier registered a case against him under the UAPA
for distributing Maoist pamphlets among Adivasi families. The
Balussery native would be released into the custody of the Aralam
Police for further investigation, the Police said.
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December 20 |
Activist Gul Muhammed Nadeer, who was taken into
custody from the Government Medical College Hospital, Kozhikode,
on December 19, for his suspected CPI-Maoist links, was let off
by the Aralam Police in Kannur District, for want of 'sufficient
evidence'. He was taken into custody while he was visiting writer
and theatre activist Kamal C. Chavara, who had been admitted to
the hospital following uneasiness after his release by the Karunagapally
Police who had detained him on a complaint of insulting the national
anthem.
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December 25 |
The CPI-Maoist cadres who have been camping in
forests in the tri-junction of Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka
have shifted their camps to the Agali Forests in Palakkad District,
which is close to Annaikatti near Coimbatore District, according
to intelligence sources. This follows the killing of two CPI-Maoist,
Kuppu Deveraj and Ajitha, in an encounter with the Kerala police
in Padukka village in the Nilambur forest division in Malappuram
District of Kerala on November 24. The group now reportedly has
11 members; of who five are women. The tribals in the area have
seen them with guns. "We have identified two of them - Manivasagam,
a native of Dharmapuri, and Chandra, a native of Krishnagiri,"
the sources added. Manivasagam has been absconding since 2008
and Chandra since 2002. Both were in an ultra-extremist organisation
and later joined CPI -Maoist. Three to five members of the group
often visit tribal villages in Pillur Dam area near Mettupalayam,
from Agali via Mulli village by travelling through forests."We
have opened a permanent camp near Pillur dam to stop them from
coming to the villages," said a senior intelligence officer.
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December 26 |
Kerala Police have found video clips from a pen-drive
they recovered during their encounter with CPI-Maoist. The video
clips seem to be the propaganda intended to influence the youth.
The main objective of the narrators in video seems to be to delegitimize
the Electoral process. Kerala Police have found video clips from
a pen-drive they recovered during their encounter with CPI-Maoists
in Nilambur forest in November. The said clips are said to have
been recorded before Assembly Elections in Kerala. In the video,
the men and women in uniforms are all seen narrating stories on
how political parties don't care about the common people and how
elections are held to deceive them. They discuss how the CPM is
a party that bombs for votes and seats, how parties sell your
drinking water to soft drink giants like Coco Cola, how Congress
is a party that specialised in scams (solar, CWG, 2G) and that
ever since the BJP came to power at the center, one is killed
for eating beef or for loving someone outside one's caste and
religion.
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December 30 |
As per the direction of Idukki SP, A V George,
the Idukki Special Branch submitted a detailed report about the
presence of the CPI-Maoist cadres at Edamalakudy in Idukki District.
The report points out that the Government should take necessary
steps against intervention of the middlemen in the area. Some
organizations are prompting tribals to hold protests against the
Government. Some of the groups have already opened Facebook
pages and were posting messages to encourage protests against
the State Government. The report adds that the Government should
assure all types of developmental activities at Edamalakudy, it
should take steps to encourage agricultural development of the
area, water stability and better treatment facility. The report
has already been forwarded to the State Police Chief for further
action.
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Note:Compiled from news reports and
are provisional.
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