Accusations fly over Maoist leader's death in gunbattle

Hyderabad: The leadership of the Communist Party of India-Maoist was dealt yet another major blow as its second most important leader and national spokesperson, Cherukuri Rajkumar alias Azad, was killed in an encounter with Andhra Pradesh police.

Another Maoist killed in the same encounter in Adilabad district remains unidentified but he is believed to be Sahdev, an associate of Azad.

Adilabad district superintendent of police P. Pramod Kumar said Azad was killed in a major encounter in the Jogapur forest, in Vankdi area, which started at around 10pm and ended at 3.30am yesterday. But Rajkumar's party and its sympathisers alleged the encounter had been staged and that Rajkumar and Sahdev had been nabbed by the police in Nagpur and brought to Adilabad before being killed.

The encounter took place in a dense forest area near Sarkepally village.

Rajkumar was a member of his party's central committee as well as the politburo, its highest decision-making body. He was second only to the party's shadowy chief Muppal Lakshman Rao alias Ganpathy and was responsible for looking after political and organisational issues. As an ideologue, he was the most articulate among the top party leaders and over the years had become the voice of the party.

Gudsa Usendi, spokesperson for the Dandakaraniya Special Zone Committee and a Maoist sympathiser and pro-Maoist poet Vara Vara Rao separately claimed Rajkumar's killing was an obvious case of a fake encounter. "Azad was to meet a courier Sahdev in Nagpur at 11 am on Thursday in Nagpur and from there they were to come to Dandakaraniya region. He was scheduled to meet me there and conduct a class", said Gudsa Usendi.

Torture charge

He said Azad and Sahdev were picked up some time yesterday and were taken to Adilabad district by the Special Investigations Bureau of Andhra Pradesh. "After subjecting them to torture last night they were killed and their bodies were dumped in the forest area", he said.

Vara Vara Rao talking to the reporters in Hyderabad said that he had learnt from this own sources said that Azad was picked up near Nagpur by the police and was killed in a fake encounter.