Maoist scare: Lens on border villages of Telangana

HYDERABAD: Three civilians and a Greyhounds commando have been killed by Maoists in Telangana-Chhattisgarh border areas since 2018. Telangana police, however, said the activities are confined to tribal areas in three districts of the state and they were keeping tabs on movement of extremists.

While Maoists bludgeoned TRS leader N Srinivasa Rao to death, branding him a police informer and abandoned the body in Sukma district of Chhattisgarh on Friday, a pressure switch IED planted by the left-wing extremists, had caused the death of a tribal in Mulugu district ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.
On April 1, Soyam Pentaiah, 43, a tribal, along with three other villagers went to the forest to collect bamboo. Pentaiah stepped on an IED and died on the spot at Mukunurupalem village in Venkatapuram mandal of Mulugu district.
Maoists generally use manually-triggered landmines or remote-triggered mines to target police and paramilitary forces. They rarely use pressure IEDs to prevent civilian casualties. “They set up the pressure IED to target police personnel searching the forest during the parliament elections. Now a days, they have upgraded to remote detonation of landmines using car remote. We have information that they can trigger a blast from 50 feet away,” an intelligence officer said.
In March, 2018, Greyhounds constable Sushil Kumar of Vikarabad was killed in an exchange of fire with Maoists at Pujarekanker close to Telangana-Chhattisgarh border. Ten Maoists were also killed in the encounter. Prior to that, in January 2018, Maoists had targeted deserters. They had shot dead former Maoist P Jogaiah in Veerapuram village of Bhadradri Kothagudem district, shot at another former naxalie, M Ramesh, who escaped with injuries.
Inspector-general (IG) V Nagi Reddy said the movement of Maoists was limited to villages close to the Chattisgarh border in Bhadradri Kothagudem, Mulugu and Jayashankar Bhupalapalle districts. “Our teams always keep a close watch on Maoist activities in the Chhattisgarh border villages and area domination exercises are being carried out,” the officer added.