Naxals now ‘manufacture’ arms
The CPI(Maoist) has developed battle capabilities and is indigenously manufacturing artillery, rocket launchers, pressure mines, pin grenades, booby traps and spare parts of high-end weapons’ like AK-47s in the Maoist heartland of Dandakaranya jungles spread across the Chattigarh-Orissa-Andhra Pradesh border. This has been revealed by arrested top Maoist leader and technical committee head Sadanala Ramakrishna during his interrogation to the Kolkata police recently. “I have mastered the skill of manufacturing rockets and rocket launchers. It is like a passion for me. I sent rockets and rocket launchers to the jungles and I was told by Basavaraj (Maoist) that these rockets were also fired on Durgi police station in Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh and many other police stations in the country and their effectiveness is 50 per cent. I am doing a lot of research for improving the efficiently of rockets and I have succeeded to a large expedient in my efforts” Ramakrishna has told the police.
Ramakrishna is a mechanical engineer from the Regional Engineering College in Warangal in Andhra Pradesh. A prize catch for the Kolkata police which arrested him on February 29 this year, Ramakrishna’s disclosures of the Maoists’ terror network are now being probed by the National Investigation Agency (NIA). It is the first Maoist case handed over by the Union home ministry to list of terrorist cases being probed by the NIA, set up after the 26/11 terror attack.
Ramakrishna said that raw materials like seamless pipes, silver steel rods, end mill cutters, electrical and carpentry goods are supplied by the Kolkata Production Unit of the Maoists. “I have sent material costing to the tune of `90 lakhs into Dandakaranya forest in the year 2011 and material worth `40 lakh was ordered and the same is being sent in due course,” he said. “We also repair all kinds of weapons and send them back to the party,” he said.
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