Naxals apparently on the run from the Anti-Naxal Force in the Bisle forest have been begging villagers in the area for food. Meenakshi Gowda and her sister were woken up by a Naxal group on Friday night, who just asked for food. The group of five men and a woman said had almost starved for more than five days and nights.
“We had received an alert about the movement of Naxals in and around our village from the local cattle grazers. Hence we had locked our houses, as the men had gone to the nearby town to get rice from the mill. It was around 7.30 pm on Friday when a girl started knocking at the door calling “Akka, thumba hasivu (sister, we are very hungry)!” recalls Meenakshi, wife of Lokesh Gowda. “We asked them to wait, but the group was so hungry that they gobbled jaggery and onion in no time. We cooked rice and passed it to them through the window. They told us that they were Naxals and they would not harm us. In fact, they offered to pay money for the rice they demanded.
However, we gave them rice since there were no men at home. My husband and the other two men from nearby houses had gone to Hettur to get rice,” Meenakshi added. The Naxal gang was reportedly on the run in the Bisle forests near Subramanya on the borders of Hassan and Dakshina Kannada districts, where the Anti Naxal Force (ANF) shot down a Naxal last week. The ANF suspects that this is the same group that was involved in the exchange of fire with them last week.
“We received alerts about movement of Naxals in our area from cattle grazers. An old woman, who had taken cattle for grazing near Hongadahalla, was the one first one to be confronted by the Naxal group on Friday afternoon,” recounts a villager from Hongadahalla in Sakleshpur taluk.
“They took down information about houses and owners’ whereabouts from her. She in turn informed a postman who visited her later in the day to pay her the old age pension. Later, the police was tipped off. When the police visited Lokesh’s house, the Naxals were still staying in the village. They fled only later. They also fired at the police as they fled. Only after this, the police started combing in that direction.”