Maoist ideologue Kobad Ghandy released on bail from Vizag jail
HYDERABAD: Top Maoist leader Kobad Ghandy, who is facing trial in several cases of murder and sabotage, was released on bail from Visakhapatnam central prison on Tuesday night.
Official sources said the 66-year-old ideologue of the outlawed CPI (Maoist) secured bail in multiple cases pending against him in various cities, including Visakhapatnam.
He will remain in Hyderabad for around a week as two more cases against him come up for hearing in Telangana.
Ghandy, who used aliases like Aravind, Saleem, Kamal and Azad, was arrested by Andhra Pradesh police from New Delhi in 2009.
He was earlier lodged in Cherlapalli central jail on the outskirts of Hyderabad for three months in connection with the assassination of former Congress MLA Chittem Narsi Reddy in August 2005.
Prior to that, he spent seven years in Tihar jail in Delhi. He has been in Visakhapatnam jail since April 4 this year.
The former central committee member of the CPI (Maoist) is also an accused in the murder of former Andhra Pradesh assembly speaker D Sripada Rao at Manthani in Karimnagar in 1999.
Ghandy was named in a conspiracy case pertaining to an attack on a team of elite anti-maoist commando unit ‘Greyhounds’ at Gunurkayi village in Visakhapatnam in 2008.
He was booked under the Explosive Substances Act and Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.
The Maoist leader has been sufferingfrommultipleailments, including cancer of prostrate, over the past few years, sources said.
Ghandy joined Naxalite politics in late 1960s. During the 1980s, he became one of the leading organisers of the newly formed Cpi(ml)(people’s War) group in Maharashtra.
He has been part of the central committee and politburo of the Cpi(maoist) since its inception in 2004.
(With inputs from Snigdhendu Bhattacharya in Kolkata)