The ‘Q’ Branch of the Tamil Nadu police detained suspected Maoist Srimathi and another woman from a checkpost near Anaikatti along the Tamil Nadu-Kerala border on Wednesday.
Sources in the ‘Q’ Branch said Srimathi and the woman accompanying her were picked up from a Coimbatore-bound TNSTC bus around 5.30 a.m.
A native of Belagodu-Kudige in Sringeri taluk, Srimathi, 27, faces nine cases registered in Sringeri and other police stations across Chikkamagaluru district.
Born into an agricultural family, Srimathi studied up to Class IX. Sources said she left her family in 2008 and got involved in the activities of suspected Maoists. She has a sister and two brothers.
As per records available with the ‘Q’ Branch and the Special Task Force (STF), she was among several suspected Maoists attached to the Kabani and Bhavani Dalams of the CPI (Maoist), who are on the watch-list of anti-Naxal agencies in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.
A source in the know said ‘Q’ Branch officials were questioning the two women at a location in Erode. Their arrests were not recorded till evening.
Kerala’s anti-Naxal squad ‘Thunderbolt’ had claimed that Srimathi was present in Agali forests near Attappadi in Palakkad when its commandos killed four Maoists in separate encounters on October 28 and 29 last year. She was allegedly part of among a few Maoists including top leader Deepak, the Dandakaranya Special Zonal Committee of the CPI (Maoist), who managed to escape from the squad. The Committee included top Maoist leader Deepak.
Deepak was arrested by the STF from a forest area near Anaikatti on November 9. No information about the whereabouts of the woman who accompanied Srimathi was made available.
(With inputs from Special Correspondent at Chikkamagaluru)
