Wayanad: A strong cadre of Maoists is camping in the jungle adjacent to the Kambamala tea plantations in Wayanad, the police have said.

Since the attack on the office of Kerala Forest Development Corporation (KFDC) at Kambamala on September 28, Maoist cadres were sighted regularly in the locality. They have entered the dilapidated cottages of plantation workers trying to hammer in revolutionary messages, pasting posters and allegedly threatening those who opposed.

Surveillance cameras damaged
On their most recent visit to the workers' cottages Wednesday night, the cadres allegedly damaged the surveillance cameras fixed by the police focusing on the entry point.

Mananthavadi DySP PL Shyju told Onmanorama that apart from regular Thunderbolt commandos, the local police have also intensified night patrol.

“We believe it is not just a five-member group trying to maintain contact with the workers. There is a backup cadre, including women,” Shyju said. The police officer is certain that the cadres are familiar with the region and have managed to navigate the jungle routes undetected.

Apart from CP Moideen, brother of slain Maoist leader CP Jaleel, a former journalist, Soman from Kozhikode, who worked at Kalpetta, Jisha, a tribal woman from the Athimala settlement near Kambamala are part of the cadre, the police said.

Labourers launch protest

There are 168 workers in the tea plantations of KFDC at Kambamala and everyone joined in a protest on Thursday demanding protection for life from the 'gun-wielding' Maoists who roam the region.

“Their (Maoists) continuous visits is causing us a lot of concern. The labourers are upset and they have told the union leaders their unwillingness to work in the situation. We're demanding protection,” said a resident of Kambamala.

A scuffle between the Maoist cadres and a worker Wednesday night is understood to be the reason for the provocation. According to the villagers, a worker was threatened and manhandled by the Maoist cadre when they questioned them for damaging the police surveillance cameras. The workers ended their public protest after talks with the police.

Kambamala is not isolated to Maoists

The forests adjacent to Kambamala are familiar zones for the Maoist cadres. There were reports of Maoists sourcing provisions, shouting slogans and pasting propaganda material at the settler hamlets of Kolayad near Peravoor and tribal hamlets of Chekyad under the Kannavam Forest Range.

The Kambamala forests are contiguous with the Kannavam forests and Brahmagiri mountain ranges that connect the Maoist cadres with the forests in Karnataka, and through the tri-junction of Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary to the forest zones of Tamil Nadu.

Fall of red citadels in the jungle

Once a hotbed of left extremism, Wayanad witnessed the last surge of Maoists a couple of decades ago.

It was Roopesh and Shyna, prominent Maoist cadres from Ernakulam, who successfully indoctrinated the tribals with their ideologies in the interior jungle hamlets of Chekadi and Basavankolly, both near Pulppalli, close to the Karnataka border.

As novices of extreme Socialist ideologies, they were regulars in the tribal hamlets between 1999 and 2006, when the cash-strapped agrarian community as well as the tribal farmers were struggling due to the price crash of almost all crops.

However, the intra-organizational conflicts coupled with strategic developmental intervention by the state, diffused the cells of these remote hamlets forcing the cadres to opt out of these tribal zones. Later in 2014, Roopesh and Shyna who were wanted in many Maoist-related actions in Kozhikode district were arrested by police from Coimbatore.

The last police shootout causing the death of a Maoist cadre took place on March 7, 2019, when CP Jaleel, a newly-inducted Maoist cadre was killed on the premises of a resort at Vythiri, Wayanad. Since then there have been regular sightings of cadres in the jungles.

Two prominent Maoist leaders -- central committee member, Kuppu Devaraj and an activist, Ajitha were killed in a police shootout at the Karulayi forests near Nilambur, Malappuram district.

Endless penury of plantation workers

The price crash of leaf tea and the uncertainty of plantation labourers have been cited as reasons for the new-found affinity of the Maoist cadres to the workforce of tea plantations.

With a considerable population of repatriated Sri Lankan Tamil workers, the Maoist cadres feel that it would be easy for them to make inroads. The isolated settlements also provide them with safe exit routes to the jungle as any entry of vehicles from outside could be easily spotted.