Hyderabad:
At a time when Maoist activity was believed to be muted in Andhra Pradesh, the recovery of the biggest-ever grenade dump, along with fresh reports of Maoist action squads moving around in the state, has reinforced fears that the Maoists are trying to make a forceful comeback.
These grenade shells, nuts and bolts would have added up to 3000 grenades. The Andhra Pradesh polices says this huge arms dump is evidence that the Maoists are trying to regain lost ground by carrying out sensational attacks in the state.
It has come as a shock to the Andhra Pradesh police that this arms dump was found in West Godavari district that has not reported a significant Maoist presence.
R R Girish Kumar, DGP, Andhra Pradesh: "These peaceful areas the Maoists are using for clandestine operations by storing arms dumps. These arms dumps are very deadly weapons, very deadly means of liquidating high number of security personnel or public.''
Documents recovered from Kondal Reddy alias Tech Ramana who was killed in an encounter on Friday led police to the dump. Tech Ramana had reportedly succeeded Tech Madhu whose arrest in 2006 led to the recovery of over 1200 rockets.
Shah Nawaz Qasim, Warangal SP: "He used to work with Tech Madhu. In Rourkela, Bhopal, Jabalpur also similar arms dumps were busted by the police two to three years ago.''
What's worrying is that nearly 1000 grenades are believed to have already been assembled and distributed to armed Maoist squads. The police has also alerted political and other targets as action teams are reported to be moving in Andhra Pradesh.