Top Maoist leader held in Andhra

Since his release,Srinivas was mostly operating in Kalimela area of Malkangiri in Orissa. According to sources,the Orissa police got specific information two days before his arrest that Srinivas was trying to reach Hyderabad with wife Vimla.

Subsequently,Malkangiri SP Akhileshwar Singh informed the Andhra SIB on Thursday night that Srinivas was travelling in a Bolero with Vimla,a private contractor from Tirupati and another couple. Within hours,Khammam police in Andhra intercepted his vehicle but they all managed to escape. The police fired at them and Srinivas was hit in the leg. While all others remain untraced so far,Srinivas was arrested.

We got information about his movement,conducted a vehicle check and he was caught. He is a big catch. He is involved in almost all major attacks on the Andhra-Orissa border, Khammam SP A V Ranganath told The Indian Express.

He is named in almost in all Maoist violence in Kalimela recently. He was the chief planner of all incidents and planting of IEDs, Akhileshwar Singh said.

Srinivas is an engineering graduate and was among the senior leaders of Peoples War Group before it merged with Maoist Communist Center to form CPI Maoist in 2004. He was a member of Andhra Pradesh State Committee of CPI Maoist and was later made an AOBSZC member and assigned the task to spread the movement in border areas.

He was arrested by the Orissa police in 2007 near Chitrakonda in Malkangiri,but later freed to ensure the release of then Malkangiri Collector R Vineel Krishna in 2011 in a swap deal. He is also believed to be involved in the attack on then Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu in Tirupati in October 2003.