The ‘Q’ Branch of the Tamil Nadu police detained suspected Maoist Srimathi, hailing from Sringeri in Chikkamagaluru district, and another woman from a check-post near Anaikatti at the Tamil Nadu-Kerala border on Wednesday morning.
Sources with the Q Branch said the women were picked up from a Coimbatore-bound TNSTC bus at 5.30 a.m. This was the first bus service to the city in the morning.
As per records with the Q Branch and the Special Task Force (STF), Srimathi, 27, was among several suspected Maoists attached to the Kabani and Bhavani Dalams of CPI (Maoist), who are on the watchlist of anti-Naxal agencies in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Karnataka.
A source in the know of the development said that Q Branch officials were questioning the two women in Coimbatore.
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 alleged to be among a few Maoists, including top leader Deepak, part of the Dandakaranya Special Zonal Committee of CPI (Maoist), who managed to escape from the Thunderbolt action.
Srimathi, a native of Belagodu-Kudige in Sringeri taluk, has been facing nine cases registered in Sringeri and other police stations in Chikkamagaluru district. Born into an agriculture family, Srimathi studied up to ninth standard. According to sources close to her family, she left the family around 2008 and got involved in the activities of the suspected Maoists. She has a sister and two brothers.
