Outlawed Communist Party of India (Maoist) has slammed the ban imposed on it by the Andhra Pradesh government and accused Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy of converting AP into a police state.

In the first reaction to the ban clamped on it and 7 frontal organizations on August 17, Maoist AP state committee secretary Ramakrishna charged Reddy on Monday with deliberately scuttling the peace talks last year to create the alibi for reimposing the ban on the Maoist movement.

AP govt reimposes ban on naxals

The joint statement from Ramakrishna and north Telangana special zone committee secretary Jampanna and AP-Orissa border special zonal committee secretary was sent to media organizations.

CPI(Maoist) leaders lambasted the government for outlawing the mass organizations which were seeking to protect the interests of different sections of people. They came down heavily on the chief minister for imposing the ban on Viplava Rachayitala Sangham (Virasam), or Revolutionary Writers Association for the first time.

"No government in the past had banned this organization comprising intellectuals and revolutionary poets and writers," they said.

CPI(Maoist) emissaries arrested

They also condemned the arrests of Virasam functionaries Varavara Rao and G Kalyan Rao, who had assisted the abandoned peace talks as Maoist emissaries. They alleged that the police was moving in to arrest another Maoist emissary and revolutionary balladeer Gaddar.

Terming these arrests as arbitrary and undemocratic, they said the government was trying to impose "thought policing" by clamping the ban on Virasam. The Maoist leaders asked the state government to clarify to the people under which law of the land had the police eliminated 110 naxalites since January this year.

They also sought immediate revocation of the ban on Virasam and other mass organizations, release of Varavara Rao and Kalyan Rao from jail, scrapping of AP Public Security Act and criminal action against policemen involved in the killing of naxalites in fake encounters.