On the murder of two CPI(M) comrades in Andhra Pradesh

July 13, 2009. A World to Win News Service. Following are excerpts from a public letter from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) dated June 2009.

On 23 May our Party and the Indian revolution had suffered another major and irreparable loss. On that fateful day, at about 10:30 am, comrade Patel Sudhakar Reddy alias Suryam alias Vikas, who is a member of the central committee of our Party, and another district-level comrade Venkatayya alias Prasanna, were arrested by the SIB [Special Investigations Branch police] goons of Andhra Pradesh and brutally tortured and murdered in the early hours of the 24th. They were arrested from Nashik city in Maharashtra. The dead bodies of our two comrades were thrown in the forest near Lavvala in Tadwai mandal of Warangal district and the usual story of an encounter was floated. The [Andhra Pradesh] Chief Minister who was in Delhi repeated this concocted police story without an iota of shame.

Our CC issued a call to the entire Party and people to observe a bharat bandh [all-India shutdown] on 12 June to protest against the cold-blooded murder of our beloved comrades. A petition was filed in the High Court by the Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Committee for conducting a re-postmortem on the body of the martyrs. Maoist prisoners in the Cherlapalli jail in Hyderabad and Warangal central jail went on a hunger strike, protesting against the encounter [killing] of Sudhakara Reddy. They demanded that fake encounters be immediately stopped.

These unconstitutional criminal acts are not carried out by some police officials at the district or even state level. They are planned and executed under the direct guidance and direction of the top political leadership. Comrades Vikas and Prasanna are the first victims of the fascist repression unleashed by the newly re-elected bloodthirsty government of Y.S Reddy in Andhra Pradesh and the Congress-led UPA government in the Centre.

Patel Sudhakar Reddy, also popularly known as Suryam in the revolutionary camp in Andhra Pradesh and as Vikas in the CC and the newly formed Party after the merger of CPI(ML)[PW] and MCCI in September 2004, had become one of the established leaders of the Indian revolution and a member of the central committee of CPI(Maoist) after a long illustrious revolutionary career. He began his revolutionary life as a student leader of the Radical Students Union in the early '80s. Responding to the call of the Party to build a zone of armed agrarian revolutionary struggle in North Telangana and Dandakaranya with the goal of transforming them into base areas, he went to Eturnagaram-Mahadevpur forest in North Telengana in 1983 and worked as a commander of the guerrilla squad. Later he was transferred to Gadchiroli district where he worked until 1988 [until he was] arrested in 1992 in Bangalore based on a tip-off from an arrested person. He remained an exemplary communist leader in jail where he spent almost seven years. He was released in 1998 and played a prominent role in building the movement in Dandakaranya in its initial years and later in the state of Andhra Pradesh. He was taken into the CC in 2005 and as a member of the CC he made significant contribution in formulating the central policies and plans.

Comrade Venakatayya hailed from Cheryala mandal in Warangal district and was actively involved in the student movement in AP for almost a decade and served as a leader of the All India Revolutionary Student Federation in AP. He was shifted to technical work in 2004 and had been working in the technical field since then.

The contribution of comrades Suryam and Prasanna to the Indian revolution will never be forgotten by the Party, the PGLA [People's Liberation Guerrilla Army] and people. They will continue the struggle for the liberation of the country with redoubled vigour and hatred for the exploiters and traitors who rule the country. The reactionary rulers of India, with the active assistance of the imperialists, vainly hope to suppress the Indian revolution by eliminating the central and state leadership of the CPI(Maoist). By this, they think they can deprive the oppressed people of leadership and suppress their struggle for land, livelihood and liberation. But this conspiracy of the reactionary rulers will remain a mere daydream. Thousands upon thousands of worthy revolutionary successors will step into the shoes of these beloved leaders turning the dreams of the reactionary rulers into nightmares.

The CC, CPI(Maoist), pays its red revolutionary homage to our beloved leaders—comrade Sudhakar Reddy and Venkatayya—and vows to fulfil their revolutionary dreams for a classless society. Let us intensify and expand the ongoing people's war, establish base areas in the vast countryside of the country, transform the PLGA into a PLA [People's Liberation Army] and advance the Indian revolution to its final victory.

The role of leadership is very crucial in any revolution. All successful revolutions in history had taken great care in preserving the leadership and ensuring continuity of leadership. Without such a continuity of leadership it is impossible to advance the revolutionary war and achieve final victory. Hence the enemy also has been trying desperately by all means at his disposal to eliminate the Party leadership at all levels, particularly the central and state leadership. Enormous funds have been allotted for the purpose of eliminating the leadership and a vast intelligence network has been set up.

Let us take proper lessons from the serious losses suffered by our Party in the recent period, specifically the period after the Party Congress, strictly avoid repetition of the mistakes and strive hard to come out of our weaknesses, preserve and accumulate our subjective forces, be ever vigilant against the conspiracies and machinations of the enemy, be ever ready for any kind of sacrifice, and march ahead to achieve bigger victories.

A World to Win News Service is put out by A World to Win magazine (aworldtowin.org), a political and theoretical review inspired by the formation of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement, the embryonic center of the world’s Marxist-Leninist-Maoist parties and organizations.

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