Top Naxal leaders now have faces
They are two of India's most wanted and between them they command up to 20,000 trained Maoist guerrillas with a presence in nearly 200 districts of the country.
For years Ganapathi, the general secretary of the feared Communist Party of India (Maoist) and his deputy Kishenda, a politburo member, were faceless. Today, Hindustan Times brings them to the public for the first time (see box).
The Maoists, described by PM Manmohan Singh as the country's single biggest security challenge, are accused of hundreds of knings, kidnapping and looting in the vast swathes they control. Home Ministry says they were responsible for the killing of 418 civilians and 214 security personnel in 2007. In 2006, the numbers were 501 and 133 respectively.
Ganapathi and Kishenda have been living secret lives for decades, though not always in the huge expanse of jungles under their complete control. Police in different states have had inputs about having spotted them in Cochin, Rourkela, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Raipur.
The security agencies acquired the photographs of the two six months ago either through a mole in the Naxal hierarchy or from a seized computer disk from a hideout in Bastar forests. The nearly 40,000 sq km expanse of forests on Chhatisgarh's border with Orissa and Andhra Pradesh is home for most number of Maoists an estimated 10,000.
To read the full article, click here....
To read the ePaper, visit : http://epaper.hindustantimes.com
For years Ganapathi, the general secretary of the feared Communist Party of India (Maoist) and his deputy Kishenda, a politburo member, were faceless. Today, Hindustan Times brings them to the public for the first time (see box).
The Maoists, described by PM Manmohan Singh as the country's single biggest security challenge, are accused of hundreds of knings, kidnapping and looting in the vast swathes they control. Home Ministry says they were responsible for the killing of 418 civilians and 214 security personnel in 2007. In 2006, the numbers were 501 and 133 respectively.
Ganapathi and Kishenda have been living secret lives for decades, though not always in the huge expanse of jungles under their complete control. Police in different states have had inputs about having spotted them in Cochin, Rourkela, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Raipur.
The security agencies acquired the photographs of the two six months ago either through a mole in the Naxal hierarchy or from a seized computer disk from a hideout in Bastar forests. The nearly 40,000 sq km expanse of forests on Chhatisgarh's border with Orissa and Andhra Pradesh is home for most number of Maoists an estimated 10,000.
To read the full article, click here....
To read the ePaper, visit : http://epaper.hindustantimes.com
Labels: CPI, Ganapathi, India, India's Most Wanted, Kishenda forests, Maoists, Naxal hierarchy, secret lives, security, security challenge, Top Naxal leaders
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10:42 AM
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