One of the top most leaders of CPI-Maoist in the country Cherukuri Rajkumar alias Azad was alive and safe, a senior Maoist leader has said.
The clarification came three days after the CPI-M (Maoist) had issued a statement alleging that Azad was abducted by the intelligence wing of Andhra Pradesh police and his life was in grave danger.
Godsa Usendi, spokesman of Dandakaranya Special Zone Committee, said on Monday evening that he has received the information from organizational sources that Azad was safe and he was not detained by police.
"A letter of Azad, which should have reached me a few days ago, arrived only last night informing us about his location," he said.
Azad has told party colleagues that as soon as he came to know about the death of senior Maoist leader Shakhamuri Appa Rao on March 12, he dropped all his plan and reached a safe place to avoid any threat from the police.
Earlier, Usendi and other Maoist leaders and their sympathisers expressed apprehensions that he might have been picked up by the police along with Appa Rao and another leader S Kondal Reddy alias Tech Ramanna.
Both Appa Rao and Kondal
Azad's letter has also thrown new light on the death of the two Maoist leaders. He has informed the party leadership that Appa Rao was picked up on March 10 in Chennai where he was in hiding for quite some time and was to stay there till April. "On March 10 he left the shelter at 8-30 am and never returned", Gudsa Usendi said. "We understand he was picked up by Andhra police on the same day, tortured and later killed in a fake encounter".
This is in contrast to the earlier statement of CPI Maoist that Azad and Kondal Reddy were picked up in Maharashtra.
Gudsa Usendi also said that Appa Rao and Kondal Reddy were picked up separately and killed separately. "there is no direct link between the two but police might have planned the two incidents at the same time", he said.
Expressing his regret over raising a false alarm over the safety of Azad, Gudsa Usendi said that he had to do it because of the prevailing circumstances and the grave threat to the Maoist leaders from Andhra police.
