Bhupalpally: Regonda police arrest Maoist sympathiser, seize pistol

Bhupalpally: A Regonda police team led by Sub-Inspector N Srikanth Reddy arrested an alleged Maoist sympathiser, Narige Rajaiah (48) of Gandhi Nagar village of Regonda mandal on Friday. The police seized a country-made pistol, two rounds of ammunition and 50 pamphlets on the Maoist weekly celebrations from him, Superintendent of Police J Surender Reddy said. […]

Bhupalpally: A Regonda police team led by Sub-Inspector N Srikanth Reddy arrested an alleged Maoist sympathiser, Narige Rajaiah (48) of Gandhi Nagar village of Regonda mandal on Friday. The police seized a country-made pistol, two rounds of ammunition and 50 pamphlets on the Maoist weekly celebrations from him, Superintendent of Police J Surender Reddy said.

Addressing a press conference, the SP said the police team was checking vehicles at the TSMDC checkpost when Rajaiah, who was on a motorcycle, tried to escape.

“The police chased and nabbed him. Rajaiah’s brother Omkar alias Prakash died in an encounter 20 years ago while working for the then Peoples War Group (PWG). Rajaiah came into contact with some Maoists during the funeral of Omkar and has been working for the Maoists since then,” the SP said, adding that a case was also registered against him at the Regonda PS in 2000. He had met Maoist leader Damodhar in the Chhattisgarh forests in 2018 with one Kommula Naresh of Jaggaiahpet village of the same mandal, the SP said.

Naresh had given a pistol to Rajaiah in 2019. With Naresh dying in an ‘encounter’ in January this year, Rajaiah kept the pistol with him, allegedly to threaten people and settle land disputes, police said.