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Syed Amin Jafri in Hyderabad
Andhra Pradesh will enforce the newly-enacted Prevention of Terrorism Act against the outlawed People's War Group and their supporters, Pervaram Ramulu, director general of police, said on Wednesday.
Addressing the media, the DGP said that the PWG, which has been banned by the Andhra Pradesh government, is also listed as a terrorist organisation under POTA.
"We are going to implement the POTA against the PWG extremists, including their supporters who are actively supporting them by way of speeches, writings and actions, since the PWG is a banned organisation under the provisions of the Act," the DGP said.
He said that the estimated strength of the PWG armed extremists is between 650 and 700.
Meanwhile, the state police unearthed huge arms dumps in Warangal, Nizamabad and Karimnagar districts in the extremist-affected Telangana region on Tuesday, the DGP said.
The police unearthed the dumps in the forests near Dubbaguden village under Kothaguda police station limits.
The arms recovered from the dumps included eight DBBL guns, one .303 rifle, 100 rounds of springfield ammunition, 1,485 rounds of 8mm ammunition, 200 rounds of AK-47 rifles and 70 rounds of .45 revolvers.
The Nizamabad police also uncovered a PWG dump in Sirnapalli forest area. A total of 586 grenades and 1934 grenade bases were recovered.
Yet another huge dump containing arms, ammunition and PWG literature was recovered from Singampally forest under Adavimutharam police station limits in Karimnagar district. The seizure included 110 rounds of AK-47 rifles, 506 rounds of .303 guns, two rounds of DBBL guns and one round of a country-made revolver.
The DGP said that a lot of PWG cadres were surrendering, disillusioned with the extremist movement.
While 1,428 extremists or sympathisers were arrested in 1999, the number shot up to 3,080 in the year 2000 and 3,872 during 2001. Another 169 persons were arrested so far this year, he said.
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