Outposts help rural cops contain Red terror in Visakhapatnam Agency

VISAKHAPATNAM: After the Ramaguda encounter, the Visakhaptnam Rural police have become a role model for anti-Naxal forces and also paramilitary forces across the country.
As many as 31 Maoists and their sympathisers were killed in the encounter near Bejjangi in Malkangiri cut-off area in Odisha on October 24 last year. The success was attributed to the outposts set up by the rural cops who had played a key role in deploying forces in time to eliminate the Naxalites.
Now, many security forces, including paramilitary forces from Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and other areas, are planning visits to study the outposts in Visakha Agency. After the Ramaguda encounter, it is learnt that the ministry of home affairs (MHA) discussed AP’s elite force Greyhounds and outposts in Visakha Agency with various security agencies some time in May this year, sources said.
The AP government has planned planned to set up six outposts with a company of forces at each one of them to curb the Maoist menace in the Agency area. The Visakha rural cops were able to set up two outposts – Rallagedda in Chintapalli mandal and Rudrakota in Pedabayalu mandal - both Maoist-infested areas in the agency, last year. After setting up of the outposts manned by the CRPF jawans, the Visakha rural police had got ample space to control the communist ultras in those areas, sources said.
“The outposts, with all amenities for the men including barracks, training ground and administrative block, compound wall and others, were constructed at a cost of Rs 2.8 crore. Both the outposts were planned during SP Koya Praveen’s tenure. He established Rallagedda outpost during his tenure and the works of another one at Rudakota were started during his term of office before the present SP Rahuldev took over the charge,” a senior police officer told TOI.