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The Andhra Pradesh police today gave a Rs 20 lakh reward to GVS Prasad alias Gudsa Usendi, spokesperson of the dreaded Dandakaranya Special Zonal Committee of the CPI (Maoist), following his surrender along with his wife a couple of days ago.
Prasad, who hails from Warangal district of Andhra Pradesh, had spent 28 years of underground life operating mostly in the neighbouring states of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra, according to state director-general of police D Prasada Rao. Disillusionment with the extremist ideology, mindless violence and destruction besides ill health led them to quit the outlawed naxal outfit, he said.
Prasad was one of the six members let off on bail by the state government in 1987 after the naxalites abducted seven IAS officers demanding their release. Interestingly, there were no cases pending against him in AP while the state police also were not aware of any cases filed against him in the neighbouring states.
In a bid to encourage surrenders in Left-wing extremist organisations, the state government had introduced monetary rewards for the naxalites according to their rank in the organisations when the extremist activities were at the peak in the 1990s.
According to the government policy, the highest reward of Rs 25 lakh was given to a central committee member followed by Rs 20 lakh to a member of the state committee (special zonal committee is equivalent to state committee), a Rs 8-lakh reward to the district committee secretary and Rs 1 lakh further down to a rank of Dalam (a primary team) member.
The police believe that Prasad’s involvement in violent activities such as the large-scale armed ambushes conducted by the naxalites on paramilitary forces recently in Chhattisgarh forests were unlikely as he was mostly working as a spokesperson and as a member of propaganda team, besides running an underground publication. His wife Santhoshi Markam, who lived underground for the past 12 years, is a native of Kondagoan district in Chattishgarh.
No fresh recruitments in AP
Though Andhra Pradesh had contributed a lion’s share to the present leadership of the Moist outfit in the country, it was no more acting as a breeding ground as no fresh recruitment into this armed Left-wing extremist outfit was noticed, according to the state police chief.
At present, 11 of the 17 central committee members, four of the six politburo members, 77 of the 275 underground cadre of the banned Maoist organisation belong to Andhra Pradesh.
“However, the developmental activities taken up by the government in the remote and backward areas, consistent efforts in creating employment and self- employment opportunities for the youth of these areas had a strong impact on the extremist activities. There was no fresh recruitment of local youth into these organisations being noticed in the recent times,” the DGP said.
He also said that more surrenders of such top-level cadres were likely to happen in the coming days.
