Kalpetta: From street vendor to Maoist Dalam commander, the Wayanad native was one of the top names in the ant-terror squads' most wanted list. The 49-year-old's arrest from Palakkad railway station on Saturday evening by the Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS), perhaps signals the end of the road for his 'revolutionary' journey. 

With more than a dozen cases slapped on him for anti-national activities, a few under the UAPA Act, legal experts opined that it would be tough for him to see the light of the world soon. 

Formerly a publisher of an evening daily at Kalpetta, Soman was inducted into Maoist activities during his stint as a journalist. During his pre-degree (Class 11 and 12) days at NMSM Government College in Kalpetta, Soman sold books, periodicals and newspapers at the bus stations to earn a living. 

According to police, Soman was then involved in the anti-blade mafia (local name for private lenders who charge usurious interest in loans) agitation in Wayanad and associated with Maoist frontal organisations like Porattom since 2005. 

Himself a victim of the blade mafia, Soman joined the agitation against the growing tentacles of private money lenders in the farming belts of Wayanad and participated in agitations that Porattam initiated. 

Soman had a narrow escape in the police shootout at Karulayi in 2016, where he had operated under the nickname Maoist Akbar. The prolonged gun battle inside the forests killed CPI Maoists' central committee member Kuppu Swami alias Kuppu Devaraj and Ajita alias Kavery, another Maoist leader. 

It was Soman who intimated the media about the shootout in the jungle. Then Soman was operating with the Bhavani Dalam of the CPI Maoist on the Kerala-Tamil Nadu border. The presence of ultras was reported from various tribal villages near Nilambur in Malappuram district and also from Attappadi in Palakkad district. 

A lean figure with a jovial character, his old-time friends consider the reported arrest a boon for the Maoist leader who has been haunted by various illnesses. During his years as an ultra, Soman had established a good rapport with marginalised tribal communities who lived on the forest fringes. They always provided him and his colleagues with food and shelter in times of need. 

Waning Maoist clout in Wayanad
With the arrest of Soman, security officials claim that there are only a few Maoist cadres left in the Wayanad jungles. A lead from the arrest of Maoist cadre Manoj from Kochi a few days back led to the arrest of Soman, they point out. 

They say that Santhosh, a Tamil Nadu native, has switched his operation to Attappadi, while another cadre CP Moideen is missing in action, though secret service sleuths are yet to track his movements. The trio was the remaining cadres of the People’s Liberation Guerilla Army constituted by the CPI (Maoist) in Wayanad, police say. 

To make matters tough for Maoists, the police have intensified raids at the houses of Maoist sympathisers in various jungle hamlets and plantation settlements including in Kambamala near Mananthavadi. 

Shootouts 
Along with the heightened surveillance, what depleted the Maoists' numbers was the various shootouts – nine Maoist cadres were killed in various shootouts in Palakkad, Wayanad, Kannur and Malappuram districts. 

Four suspected Maoists were killed in an alleged encounter by the specialised Thunderbolt police force in the jungle zones of Attapady in Palakkad district during combing operations on October 28, 2019. In another incident, CP Jaleel and Velmurukan were killed in 2019 in an alleged encounter in Upavan Resorts at Vythiri in Wayanad. 

Lakshmi alias Kavery, another member of the Western Ghat Zonal Committee of the CPI Maoists succumbed to her injuries suffered during the shootout on November 13, 2023, at Ayyankunnu near Iritty, in Kannur. Suresh, another member of the Kabani Dalam, had surrendered after he suffered serious injuries in an elephant attack.