KARNATAKA POLICE GO THE AP WAY

On 27 August, 1999 at 4-30 pm Comrade Bhaskar was killed in an "encounter" near Ganjalli village in Karnataka’s Raichur district. 28-year-old Comrade Bhaskar alias Balakrishna who hails from Srikakulam district of Andhra Pradesh, was killed after being captured by a special commando-trained anti-naxal police unit of Karnataka.

The police version of the incident which was faithfully parroted by the media tried to make it look like a real encounter. When the police confronted the squad, the latter opened fire and in the exchange of fire that lasted for almost an hour, one Naxalite was killed..... so goes the police story. But the facts speak a different story.

The police, basing on a tip-off, suddenly pounced on the four-member squad who were resting amidst bushes. When the squad members began to retreat, the police chased them for over a kilometre and caught Com. Bhaskar when he fell down after his leg hit a stone. His wife Sunitha, who was unable to run as fast as the police, was also arrested. Com. Bhaskar’s hands were then tied behind his back, was tortured for a while and was shot thrice from point-blank range. Such was the "brave" encounter staged by the Karnataka police! These dramatic developments come as a culmination of state repression and terror going on for more than an year in Raichur.

Foreboding the encounter was a whiff of repression in July and August this year. Not satisfied with having tossed eight members of the Karnataka Raitha Coolie Sangha, among whom are full timers too, into jail; they have arrested all the leading cadres of the Progressive Youth Centre and Pragathipara Vidhyarthi Kendra of Raichur city including PVK’s state joint secretary Comrade Kumar. Not satisfied, the police have also arrested members of other democratic organisations under charges of conspiring against the state and under the notorious Anti-Goonda Act. With this, more than 14 are in jail, over half already for an year now.

Hunting for more activists. Shadowing wives and children of revolutionaries. Threatening women members with rape. Threats. Torture. Cases. Bribes. Raids in the dead of night.

Even as the great exercise in ‘democracy’ is on, the harsh facts from the sun-baked fields of Raichur speak of a different reality. The police in Karnataka have decided to eliminate the revolutionary peasant movement. They walk over the dead and trample over the innocent to preserve this decadent reactionary system.

Raichur borders Andhra, and the contagion of repression easily afflicts the Karnataka police. They have brutally demonstrated that they are headed the AP way.

But Raichur borders Andhra. There is another contagion which also easily afflicts the oppressed masses: Armed revolution! With all paths to redress obstructed, the peasantry of Karnataka are also headed the AP way. And, what can be a better illustration of this than the path blazed by Comrade Bhaskar before his martyrdom !

Comrade Bhaskar whose original name is Balakrishna, hails from a poor peasant family of Pallisarathi village of Vajrapukothuru in Srikakulam district. The village had traditionally been a centre of revolutionary political activity right from the days of Srikakulam armed struggle in the late 1960s. Comrade Balakrishna became the leader of the local youth organisation and was popular in the surrounding villages as an organiser of the Radical Youth by 1990. He dutifully carried out the tasks entrusted to him by the Uddanam squad.

In 1991 he became a full-timer and worked as a squad member in Srikakulam and was later entrusted with responsibility in technical field. Impressed by his abilities in the technical field, the AP State Committee inducted him into its tech staff in 1993. From then on until January 1999, Com. Balakrishna shouldered all the responsibilities entrusted to him by the AP SC. But his aspiration always had been to work among the people , particularly in the East region. However, he readily agreed to work in Karnataka when the higher committee placed the proposal before him. Within less than 6 months after he commenced work in the rural area of Raichur, he became a martyr. Com. Balakrishna, who worked for almost a decade in the revolutionary movement, had great urge to learn new things; used to ask senior comrades several questions in order to enhance his political knowledge; tried to apply his knowledge creatively, whether in the field of class struggle or the tech field. Balakrishna’s martyrdom is a great loss to the budding revolutionary movement in Karnataka and to the entire party.