Maoist leader, wife offer to surrender before police

A key member of CPI(Maoist) Central Committee , Sathwaji alias Sharath, along with his wife Vydugula Aruna alias Neelima, Zonal Committee member, surrendered before the DGP of Telangana on Wednesday.

Satwaji, who hails from Sangapur village and mandal in Nirmal district, belongs to Kurma community from a poor family.

In 1983, while he was studying his intermediate, he came in contact with Venu, who influenced him towards the ideology of CPI (ML) People’s War Group.

While he was working in Central technical Team (CTC) network, he used to transport arms and ammunition from Bengaluru to different areas.

During that time, he was introduced to Sadanala Ramakrishna, CTC in-charge.

Later, Sadanala Ramakrishna put him in a den at Gulbarga.

He worked most of the period in military formations of CPI(Maoist).

He worked as State Military Commission Secretary for 13 years.

He became member of the Central Military Commission on induction to Central Committee in 2013.

Speaking to media, he said that there are internal conflicts and differences among the top Maoists leaders.

He added that women cadre have been subjected to harassment due to which many have committed suicide.

He said that he CPI(Maoist) received setback in most of the areas in the country and became significantly weak as it lost mass support. The strength of the cadre and potential to commit violent incidents has drastically gone down.

In Dandakaranya also, recruitment came down significantly and the party is confined to South Bastar region, Sukma and Bijapur Districts.

Local tribes also are becoming disillusioned with the party ideology and distancing themselves from the party.

The husband and wife duo said that they were vexed with the wrong trends developed at all levels in the party and due to health problems decided to give up extremism/underground life and join mainstream.

Satwaji carries Rs 25 lakh and Neelima is carrying a reward of Rs 10 lakh— this will be paid to them in due course of time.