A senior Maoist leader, Kyatham Srinivas, surrendered before the police after three decades of far-left activism with outlawed far-left organisations. According to local media, Srinivas had gone underground in late 1980's after joining the People's War Group (PWG), and worked in different positions after that. According to police Srinivas surrendered due to ill health and ideological differences with the party's central committee’s leadership and eastern region bureau’s (ERB) anti-people policies.
Srinivas surrendered before the Kamareddy District Superintendent of Police on Tuesday. During his underground stint, Srinivas was known by many names, including Samir, Suraj, Satyadev, Rahul, Aravind, etc, and carried a Rs 5 lakh bounty on his head according to police officials. He is also accused in several cases.
"Srinivas, who hails from Telangana, had some disputes with the central leadership of the Maoists party and their ideology, and also had some personal reasons, and so he surrendered before the police," a senior police official told PTI.
"He worked in various cadres of the Maoist party in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand," the official said.
According to reports in the local media, Srinivas who hails from Devunipally of Kamareddy, was attracted to far-left activism during his intermediate education years.
According to Kamareddy SP Swetha Reddy, in 1985, Srinivas was an active participant of the Radical Students Union (RSU). He joined the PWG while he was in the second year of his BA course.
It was in 2004 that the CPI (Maoist) party was formed, following the merger of the People's War Group, Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) and the Maoist Communist Centre of India (MCCI).
After becoming a full-timer in the party, he worked as a Commander in Dandakaranya and as District Committee Member in 2000. According to police he later moved to Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. Officials said that he was UP state organising committee member and Eastern Regional Bureau member. Srinivas is said to have claimed that he was working as a school teacher between 2014 and July this year.
(With inputs from PTI)
(With inputs from PTI