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Updated: Oct 26, 2016 21:44 IST

The CPI (Maoist) on Wednesday vowed a suicide attack on Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu and his son Lokesh, holding them responsible for the death of 28 of their cadre in an encounter on the Andhra-Odisha border.

This is the first time in the 50-year old history of the extremist movement that the outlawed outfit has spoken of a suicide attack on a politician. Sources said there had been intelligence inputs that Maoists had links with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which was known for grooming suicide squads.

In a four-page letter sent to media houses in the state, CPI (Maoist) Andhra Pradesh committee spokesperson Shyam said Naidu escaped the attempt on his life at Alipiri (the foothills of Tirumala in Chittoor district) in October 2003, but he would not be able to escape this time. “No police or military force can save you this time,” he said.

Shyam alleged that Naidu, in collusion with the Centre, had resorted to the massacre of Maoist leaders and cadre in a covert operation in Malkangiri on the Andhra-Odisha border on Monday. “Naidu was notorious for such killings in the past. Soon after returning to power after a gap of 10 years, he got 21 labourers killed in a fake encounter branding them as red sanders smugglers,” he alleged.

Read | HC asks Andhra to preserve bodies of Maoists killed in Odisha’s Malkangiri

Describing Monday’s encounter as fake, he also alleged that the Greyhounds (the elite anti-Maoist force of Andhra Pradesh police), using their coverts, mixed sedatives in the food given to the Maoists, who had assembled in the forest to discuss people’s issues. “After they fell unconscious, the police opened fire at them and killed 24 of them in a cold-blooded manner. The police forces also kidnapped some of the injured and after subjecting them to torture for several hours, killed four of them on Tuesday,” he stated.

The Maoist spokesperson said a Greyhounds commando was not injured in the exchange of fire, but fell into the Balimela reservoir accidentally, and the police used it to claim the encounter was genuine.

Read | Why Maoists are desperate to regain lost ground in Andhra, Telangana