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The surrendered top Maoist leader in Andhra Pradesh Sambasivudu was today allowed to meet his family after which he visited a house in Vanasthalipuram area where his parents and daughter were staying with relatives and met them after several years. It was an emotional reunion as tearful parents and daughter Swarnalatha received him
Speaking to the media, Sambasivudu said his only aspiration now was to lead a normal life as an ordinary person. "I don't have plans to join any political party", he said. He hoped that after the officials review all his cases, he was expected to be released with in a week and go home.
Sambasivudu, who is the only state chief of CPI Maoist ever to surrender to the police, faces almost 100 criminal cases. His name figures in several high profile incident of Maoist violence including the attempt to assassinate the Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu in 2003 and killing of two Congress legislator Ragiah Naik and C Narsi Reddy.
But Sambasivudu looked least perturbed by the seriousness of the cases.
"Personally I am not responsible for these incidents. The cases related to the CPI Maoist organization as I carried out the orders of the organization. Now that I have come out of the party, I have nothing to do with them," he said.
Options before Sambasivudu
Informed sources in the Special Investigations Bureau, handling the case of Sambasivudu, said he was handed over to his family last night itself at the Greelands guest house and at present he was allowed to stay with the family.
"WE will resume questioning him after he stays with his parents and daughter and other family members for a couple of days", a senior official said.
He has two options before him. Either he can stay with his brother Ramulu in Vanasthalipuram or he can go to his native village Dasireddygudem in Nalgonda district and stay with his parents Chandraiah and Lakshmamma and daughter Swarnalatha.
According to the police sources, there was an interesting story behind Sambasivudu's surrender. The state CPI Maoist Secretary Samba suffered a major setback after his two bodyguards were killed in an encounter in 2007 and he could escape with great difficulty. Later his health deteriorated because of Chikungunya and while roaming in the forest he suffered a lot. For a while he was shifted to Karnataka and Maharashtra but he had language problem there and he wanted to come back to Nallamall. But the party did not accept his request forcing him to think about giving up arms.
Meanwhile, popular balladeer Gaddar condemned Sambasivudu for surrender.
"What has he achieved through the struggle of all these years that he has surrendered now. Has he got justice to the tribal people. Has he solved the problem of people of his own Nalgonda district suffering from fluoride affected water", he asked.
A police official involved in the anti-Maoist operations said with the surrender of Sambasivudu, the Maoist movement has more or less been wiped out and the Nallamalla forest area spread over five districts of Mahbubnagar, Nalgonda, Kurnool, Prakasham and Guntur could be declared as a Maoist free zone.
On the basis of information provided by Sambasivudu, the police have launched search operation to locate a dump with huge quantity of sophisticated arms, ammunition and about 1 crore in cash. Samba provided the details of the dump at a secret place in Nallamlla forest, sources said.