Leaders to get police cover

GUNTUR: Waking up to the threat issued by outlawed People''s War naxalites to the people''s representatives in the district, the police department has decided to provide security to all important leaders.
Senior police officials, who met here on Friday, reviewed the situation in naxalites-affected areas and discussed the joint combat operations that were launched in five districts.However, the issue of the spate of resignations by the village-level people''s representatives had reportedly dominated the discussions.
PW''s Krishna Patti squad commander Sagar earlier warned the people''s representatives to quit their posts or face the consequences as the police stepped up the combing operations for naxalites against the wishes of locala.
He said the people''s representatives should take the moral responsibility for their failure in convincing the government to stop the police operations against naxalites.
Reacting to the PW''s threat call, a number of sarpaches and village level leaders have started relinquishing their posts. Though, the naxalite outfit did not spare the opposition Congress party leaders, the ruling party leaders were under more pressure and buckling under it.
In a way, the People''s War naxalites had succeeded in throwing a spanner in the good work done by the Guntur SP, Ravishankar Ayyanar, who got the militants surrender in a big way.
The senior officials have also reportedly strove to evolve a strategy to counter the PW''s threat to the political leaders. It was decided to give police security to all important leaders, including former MLAs, market committee chairmen and even some prominent mandal-level leaders. Measures would be taken to boost the sagging morale of the village-level leaders.
Joint operations in Guntur, Nalgonda, Prakasam, Kurnool and Mahabubnagar districts will be continued with additional forces. "Joint operations have already started yielding results," observed a senior official.
Guntur range inspector general P Chandrasekhara Reddy, Inspector general (greyhounds) Anurag Sharma, DIG (SIB) Gowtham Sawang and SP Ravishankar participated in the meeting.