Home Explained Explained: Kerala’s Maoists, and how they differ from their comrades elsewhere

Explained: Kerala’s Maoists, and how they differ from their comrades elsewhere

Over the last decade or so, Kerala has seen overt and covert Maoist activities in the northern districts of Kannur, Kozhikode, Wayanad, Palakkad, and Malappuram

After the encounter in Attappadi forest of Palakkad district. (Express)

Thunderbolt commandos of the Kerala Police killed four alleged Maoists in back-to-back encounters over Monday and Tuesday in the Attappadi forests of the state’s Palakkad district. The four individuals, including a woman, belonged to Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, police said.

This was the third encounter between police and Maoists in Kerala in almost three years. In March this year, police shot dead a Maoist activist who had allegedly gone to extort money at a resort in Wayanad district. In November 2016, two Maoists were killed in an encounter in the Nilambur forests in Malappuram district.

Over the last decade or so, Kerala has seen overt and covert Maoist activities in the northern districts of Kannur, Kozhikode, Wayanad, Palakkad, and Malappuram. In 2018, Wayanad, Malappuram, and Palakkad joined the Centre’s list of 90 leftwing extremism (LWE) affected districts across the country.

Beginnings of Naxalism

The ripples of the Naxalbari uprising in North Bengal in the late 1960s reached Kerala as well. North Kerala, including Wayanad, was a hotbed of the ultra-Left movement, and A Varghese, a CPM leader who turned to Naxalism, and K Ajitha, who is now a prominent feminist activist, inspired a series of revolts against landlords. The so-called ‘Spring Thunder’, however, suffered a blow when Varghese, who had won the hearts of tribals, was killed in an encounter — which was subsequently revealed to have been fake — in 1970.

Leaflets and addresses

The nature of Maoist operations in Kerala is different from that in other LWE-affected states. They have never targeted civilians or caused human casualties, and use the trijunction of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Karnataka — where a seamless forest cover and difficult terrain hamper policing — as a safe organisational and transit hub. Forest patches in Palakkad, Malappuram, and Wayanad are part of this trijunction.

Over the past several years, the Maoists set up three squads (dalams) in this area — the Kabani, Nadukani, and Bhavani dalams — and added a fourth, the Varahini dalam, in 2017. They typically enter villages or tribal hamlets bordering forests, address the local people, and distribute leaflets in an attempt to drive home the argument for an armed struggle against the state.

They have not, however, had any significant success in winning over youths in the tribal hamlets, for which several factors are responsible: the socio-economic profile and standard of living of tribals in Kerala is far better than elsewhere, and improved policing and greater socialisation of tribal youths make recruitment difficult.

The Maoists mostly return to the jungles after collecting provisions from the villages.

Read | CM says police fired in self-defence, CPI seeks judicial probe

Some stray activities

There have been stray cases of Maoist attacks on resorts and stone quarrying units alleged to be operating illegally or encroaching on lands of tribals. Forest outposts too, have been occasionally targeted. Police sometimes register cases against identifiable Maoists, based on complaints from local people.

In 2014, Maoists strayed from the villages and forest fringes to attack a KFC outlet in Palakkad. That same year, the Kochi corporate office of Nitta Gelatin India Limited (NGIL), a prominent Indo-Japanese industrial venture, was vandalised. After playing cat and mouse for several years, Maoists and the Kerala Police exchanged fire in December 2014 in a reserve forest in Wayanad. The deaths in the encounters over the last three years have not deterred the Maoists, who have been spotted at several places in North Kerala.

Big Maoist names

A prominent leader is R Roopesh, 50, of Thrissur district. At the time of his arrest in Tamil Nadu in 2015, Roopesh had been heading the Western Ghats Zone of the Maoist movement for several years, and faced some 30 cases in Kerala. His wife P A Shyna, who worked alongside him, was arrested, too. Shyna has been released on bail; Roopesh remains in judicial custody.

Murali Kannampilly, now 67, was arrested by the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad in 2015. The son of Kannampilly Karunakara Menon, a former diplomat who served as India’s High Commissioner and Ambassador to several countries, Murali Kannampilly was for long a key figure in the Maoist movement in Kerala. He was recently released on bail from jail in Pune.

The Cherukara Palli family of Pandikkadu in Malappuram is one of Kerala’s prominent Maoist families. C P Jaleel, who was killed in Wayanad in March this year, belonged to this family. Jaleel’s brother, C P Ismail, had been arrested in Pune along with Murali Kannampilly. A third brother, C P Moitheen, operates in forests in Kerala, while a fourth, C P Rasheed, is a human rights activist associated with the Maoist front Porattam.

The brothers started out on an activist path with issues concerning Dalits and the environment, and subsequently embraced Maoism.

The lone target of the second of this week’s double encounter in Palakkad, Manivasakam, was also a senior Maoist leader, and a member of the CPI(Maoist) Tamil Nadu State Committee. Manivasakam had been allegedly leading the Attappadi camp since the 2016 encounter in Malappuram, in which Kuppu Devaraj alias Ravanna, a member of the CPI(Maoist) central committee, was killed.

In Kerala from other states

According intelligence sources, most of the Maoists operating in Kerala belong to other states. There may be some three dozen of them in number, along with a handful from Kerala. Several top Maoists from other states, such as Vikram Gowda, have been spotted in the state. Six of the seven Maoists killed in the last three years (including in this week’s encounters) were from other states. The presence of these Maoists is usually attributed to the intensified police action in other LWE states, which drives them to seek refuge in Kerala.

Sympathy and support

As Maoists have not shed civilian blood in Kerala, their movement enjoys significant support. Kerala Maoists get logistic and ideological backing from organisations such as Porattam and Ayyankalipada, as well as from human rights activists. Police killings of alleged Maoists and cases against them are invariably questioned, and human rights activists often conduct a parallel probe into encounter killings.

The CPI, an ally of the ruling CPI(M), has always questioned police action against Maoists. Senior CPI leaders attended the wedding of the daughter of Roopesh and Shyna. In 2015, Kerala High Court said that being a Maoist is not a crime, and no one could be arrested merely for being one. After this week’s killings, CPI state secretary Kanam Rajendran took strong exception to the police action, and retired HC judge Kemal Pasha said the police might have been trying to divert attention from other issues. Human rights activists marched in protest in Kozhikode on Tuesday, and were arrested.

📣 The Indian Express is now on Telegram. Click here to join our channel (@indianexpress) and stay updated with the latest headlines

For all the latest Explained News, download Indian Express App.