CPI (Maoist) eye varsities for cadre

2 rebels attempt to kill Podile to attract youth

CPI (Maoist) leadership seems to be making fresh attempts to recruit students from various universities in the country. The party, headed by the highly-educated class, of late has seen a fall in recruitment from the students’ segment.

“Their plans are evident with the arrest of two persons: Ankala Prudhiviraj of Andhra Pradesh and Chandan Kumar Mishra of West Bengal. They were arrested by the Andhra Pradesh police for conspiring to kill University of Hyderabad Vice-Chancellor P. Appa Rao,” intelligence officials said.

CPI(Maoist) leadership seems to be making fresh attempts to recruit students from various universities in the country.

The arrested duo, along with Telangana State Maoists’ Committee secretary Haribhushan, had allegedly planned to kill the Vice-Chancellor with an aim to recruit students into the Maoist group.

“They believed that there is resentment amongst the students against the Vice-Chancellor following recent developments in the campus and they believed that killing the Vice-Chancellor would help in getting more student recruits,” Vishal Gunni, Superintendent of Police, East Godavari said.

Students across the country were attracted to Maoists since 1980s when the People’s War Group or the Naxalism was at its peak. Students from various universities in united Andhra Pradesh and other states had then joined the movement.

According to police records, students from Kakatiya University and Regional Engineering College (now National Institute of Technology), Warangal and Osmania University, Hyderabad, joined the then People’s War cadre.

Intelligence officials said that the youth had weaned away from the Maoist ideologue in universities now and there are isolated cases of ‘educated youth’ joining the movement, at least in Telangana. The officials explained that the front organisations of the Maoists play a vital role in identifying potential recruits in almost all higher educational institutions and universities across the country.

The movement had impressively spread in the 1980s because of huge recruitments of highly educated students who were committed to the movement. The leadership now wants to boost the movement by recruiting students into its fold. Moreover, there were frequent deaths of maoist cadre during encounters and dwindling numbers owing to mass surrenders.

IN OCTOBER 2017, the police arrested Mahesh Nukala from the Osmania University for allegedly recruiting students into Maoist organisations. Mahesh was the leader of Telangana Vidyarthi Vedika.

IN JULY 2016, Warangal police arrested Azad, a student of MA Philosophy, for allegedly being a Maoist sympathiser.