Maoists plan to blow up police

The Maoists are now adopting an LTTE strategy to secure their bastions by planting more pressure mines and digging up bunkers in the wake of stepped-up police operations against them.

The pressure mines that are supposed to blow up when someone steps on them are being planted on routes leading to their bastions in the Andhra-Orissa border and in Dandakaranya zone to thwart security forces from advancing towards them.

In the latest arms haul at Tanuku in West Godavari, district police found 1,000 pressure mines which were kept ready for use by the Maoists.

The director-general of police, Mr R.R. Girish Kumar, said, “The weapons are precision-made and are deadly on impact.”

Police said that though the Maoists have been using pressure mines for several years, they are adopting this strategy on a large scale in the wake of stepped-up operations like the Green Hunt.

“Earlier they were using pressure mines in Visakhapatnam,” said an official.

The recently killed Naxal, Sakhamuri Appa Rao, was trying to replace Patel Sudhakar Reddy in leading the action teams. Mr Kumar said, “Appa Rao was directly in touch with the CPI Maoist central committee secretary, Ganapati. He is guiding all action teams.” Sources said Ganapati was personally supervising all central action teams to carry out major attacks in the country, particularly in AP.