JOIN USBJP sees ulterior motives behind Naxals' surrender
Two naxals may have surrendered in the State on Monday. But the BJP seems to be unfazed. The party says that there is more to it than meets the eye.
State party president Pralhad Joshi and C T Ravi, MLA from Chikkamagaluru, said the much-touted return to the mainstream of the two
extremists could well be for recruiting more people in the armed struggle that they profess.
Joshi told reporters in Belagavi, “The way the two naxals Sirimane Nagaraj and Noor Zulfikar were welcomed with garlands, as if they were heroes, apparently seemed like the naxals had not surrendered. Instead, the State government itself had surrendered to the naxals.”
“They need to surrender with their heads bowed for involving in an armed struggle. However, the duo was joining the mainstream without any feeling of guilt. The way they were welcomed has left me perplexed.”
Joshi said the gestures of the two ultras while surrendering did not give the impression that they had given up their ideology.
“They may have surrendered because of the age factor and I suspect they returned only to recruit people for their movement.”
MLA Sunil Kumar said those in the State committee to oversee rehabilitation of naxals are sympathisers of the movement.
In Mysuru, Ravi, addressing a press conference, suspected a hidden agenda behind the surrender.
He said there were questions as to why the two naxals were being made to surrender and not Vijay Krishnamurthy, Vikram Gowda and Latha, actively involved in such activities.
Attributing their surrender to “ill health and old age,” he said there were possibilities of the two recruiting more people as naxals once they are in the mainstream. “The State should not pay the price later,” he said.
He demanded that the government remove journalist Gowri Lankesh from a committee formed to bring naxals to the mainstream.
“Having a person who is a known naxal sympathiser will hinder the activities of the committee. A person with such antecedents should not be made part of a constitutional committee. In 2005-06, the State police had identified some of the organisations represented by Gowri Lankesh as pro-naxal,” he said.
He criticised the State government for “hindering” the activities of the Anti-Naxal Force (ANF) in the State. Recalling the incident in which a person suspected to be a naxal was shot down by the ANF, he said action against the ANF staff that followed had caused discord among the personnel.
DH News Service