Warangal, May 18: Even as the district police are groping in the dark not knowing the identity of the assailants who gunned down the deputy general manager of Ballarpur Industries Limited (BILT) on Monday, the CPI (Maoist) party on Tuesday claimed responsibility for the killing.
A Maoist leader of the region claimed that the official, Ramakrishna, was killed for his anti-worker policies.
Though the district police had been suspecting the role of Praja Pratighatana Group (PPG) of CPI-ML in the killing, the CPI (Maoist) said it was behind the daring attack on the factory premises. Incidentally, the two assailants who shot dead Ramakrishna and injured senior manager K Sadanandam raised `Maoists Zindabad’ slogans while leaving the place.
A person identifying himself as Sudhakar and claiming to be the secretary of the Khammam-Karimnagar- Warangal (KKW) zone of the Maoists, made telephone calls to reporters based at Eturunagaram on Tuesday evening.
Owning up responsibility for the killing, Sudhakar alleged that Ramakrishna pursued anti-worker policies and that the management was reluctant to implement the fifth Wage Board recommendations.
Soon after the calls were made to mediamen, police and intelligence officials swung into action to verify the claims of the Maoist leader. “The veracity of the claims is being ascertained,” a police officer said, adding that it (the attack) can be seen as a possible revival of the Maoist activity in the area if they had indeed participated in the daring attack.
Throughout the investigation, police were suspecting collection of ‘chanda’ (party fund) by the PPG as the possible reason for the killing.
“Other Left-wing groups including the Maoists, Janashakti and CPUSI have lost their grip over the Agency areas of Warangal as a result of relentless police operations.
The only Left-wing extremist group that is still active in the area is PPG’s Mohananna group and we suspected their involvement in the killing,” senior police officials had told Express earlier.
The assailants gunned down BILT deputy general manager Ramakrishna and injured another senior manager, K Sadanandam, on the factory premises in Mangapeta mandal in the forest area of the district.
Meanwhile, police said it is common for the Naxalite groups to involve in the operations of the factory management since its inception.
“As the factory is located in a dense forest area, it is common for Naxalites to meddle in factory matters. They often targeted senior officials of the factory to gain workers’ confidence,” officials said.
According to sources, some Naxalite groups had in the past ‘summoned’ some senior officials of the factory to the forest area to discuss issues relating to management.
“The erstwhile People’s War Group (PWG), now called Maoists, did not meddle in factory affairs but Janashakti, Pratighatana and Praja Pratighatana did,” the sources said.
In 2004 the CPUSI even held a ‘Praja Court’ near the factory and summoned the officials. A circle inspector, Madan, was gunned down by the CPUSI activists when he went there on knowing that a Praja Court was being held there. In 2006 the PPG kidnapped the then general manager of BILT, Srinivasa Rao, and thrashed him in the forest area. There were also several instances of factory contractors being harassed by the group.
According to sources, the PPG had been issuing threats to the factory management for the past few months.
Fearing threat, chief general manager Dharma Pal Jain shifted to New Delhi and even Ramakrishna, who was killed on Monday, went on leave for some days for the same reason. Ordered by the management to resume duties, Ramakrishna came back from leave just a week ago.
–Agencies