By IANS
Hyderabad : The whereabouts of top Andhra Pradesh Maoist leader Sambasivudu remained unknown while his family members and Maoist sympathizers Sunday alleged that he was in police custody,and warned that the government would be responsible for any harm to him.
The parents and brother of Maoists’ state secretary Sambasivudu travelled to the state capital from their village in Nalgonda district and said they feared for his life. They threatened to commit suicide if the police harmed him.
The family members were not allowed to meet Director General of Police S.S.P. Yadav and their efforts to meet state Home Minister K. Jana Reddy for the second time also failed.
“The police in the name of Blue Tigers have arrested them. The police and the government will be responsible if my son is harmed,” said Sambasivudu’s father Chandraiah.
Sambasivudu and K. Ravi, another Maoist, were reportedly arrested by the police near the Andhra-Orissa border Thursday night.
They were training locals and tribals brought from the Dantewada region of Chhattisgarh when they were surrounded and detained by personnel of the anti-Maoist force. About 40 tribals, however, escaped into the forests.
The parents had met the home minister in Nalgonda but he denied that the Maoist leader was in police custody.
The family members have also approached the State Human Rights Commission and have demanded that that their son be produced in a court of law without any delay.
A Telugu television channel had Saturday received an anonymous telephone call stating that Sambasivudu was in the custody of ‘Blue Tigers.’
Maoist sympathizers and rights groups allege that ‘Blue Tigers’ is a private army run by the state police for extra-judicial killings of Maoists. In the past, groups like ‘Red Tigers’, ‘Green Tigers’ and ‘Cobras’ had targeted Maoists.
“Blue Tigers is nothing but one of the private armies run by the police,” said Gaddar, a Maoist sympathizer and revolutionary balladeer, who was also shot and injured in Hyderabad by a similar group a decade ago.
Gaddar warned that if the government of Y.S.R Reddy continued to encourage private armies of police, it would meet the fate of previous the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) government of N. Chandrababu Naidu.
“People will teach Rajasekhara Reddy a lesson,” he said.
The Maoist movement in the state received serious setbacks during the last two years with police eliminating several top leaders and armed cadres of the Communist Party of India-Maoist.
Maoist violence in Andhra Pradesh has claimed more than 6,000 lives in the last four decades.