Karnataka’s most wanted Naxal leader Vikram Gowda (44) was gunned down by the Anti-Naxal Force (ANF) in Seethabail (Hebri), Udupi district, on November 18, past midnight.
The ANF had started combing the Hebri region (Kabbinale forests) based on a tip-off about the movement of a five-member Maoist team in a nearby village to buy daily essentials. When the police came face-to-face with the Naxals, the latter opened fire and Gowda was killed in an exchange fire, while four others managed to flee.
Gowda, a native of Nadpalu village in Hebri, entered the Naxal movement during the Kudremukh National Park agitation and other labour agitations in early 2000s. Gowda was the incumbent head of the Netravati wing of the Karnataka side of Western Ghats and had around 20 cases of subversive activities against him in Udupi and Chikmagalur districts. He had evaded arrest at least three times and was opposed to the Karnataka government’s ‘surrender policy’. However, the dwindling local support and enhanced combing operations in Naxal-infested states like Jharkhand, Chattisgarh, Odisha and Andhra-Telangana, had forced the Karnataka members to seek refuge in their home state.
In November first week, the ANF intensified the combing operation in Malnad and coastal Karnataka districts following reports of a Naxal group visiting a house near Koppa (Chikmagalur). The Naxals had left behind three guns in the house and rumours of some Naxals, who were starved of food and local support, wanting to surrender had activated the ANF teams.
Home Minister G. Parameshwara confirmed that the ANF had shot dead Gowda, who was wanted in many cases. “Vikram Gowda has died in an exchange of gun fire in Hebri, while four others have fled,” he said.
Gowda was married to a fellow revolutionary Savitri, a native of Kalasa in Chikmagalur and later divorced. Savitri alias Rejitha, who was operating as commander of the Kabini Dalam of the CPI(M) based in Wayanad-Kozhikode region was arrested along with senior Maoist leader B.G. Krishnamurthy ‘BGK’ from Sulthan Bathery in Wayanad by the Anti-Terror Squad of the Kerala police in November 2021.
Vikram had succeeded BGK, who had replaced Nelagudi Padmanabha as the leader of Naxals in Karnataka, after he fell ill. However, the Naxal movement in Karnataka started with Nelagudi’s predecessor—Saketh Rajan, a celebrated naxal leader who was gunned down in an early morning encounter by the police in Menasinahadya in Chikmagalur in 2005.
Who was Saketh Rajan?
Saketh, who was born to a Tamil Brahmin family in Mysore, pursued postgraduation in journalism from Indian Institute of Mass Communication Delhi, and became one of the first generation of Naxalites from Karnataka, who also authored “Making History” (two volumes) about the movement.
In 1995, Saketh was handpicked by CPI(ML) leadership to lead the movement in Karnataka (and came to be known as “Prem” – the state secretary) which was limited to ‘experiments’ in Bidar and Raichur. Saketh had married a fellow revolutionary Rajeshwari, who got killed in an encounter near Visakhapatnam in 2001. Saketh moved to Malnad where Adivasis were protesting against eviction from Kudremukh in Western Ghats, which was soon to have a national park. Saketh identified himself as “Pandu”, and caught the youth’s attention through his speeches. In June 2004, a team of journalists trekked into the forest to broker peace between Naxals and the state government. Journalist-activist Gauri Lankesh (who was gunned down in 2017 outside her Bengaluru residence) was part of the team that made a futile bid at reconciliation. The following year, Saketh was killed in an encounter.
Karnataka's rehabilitation package for surrendered Naxals
At least 14 Naxals have surrendered since 2010 and have availed the state’s rehabilitation package. Karnataka was removed from the list of Naxal-infested states in the country in 2010, though Naxal sightings were being reported. In 2019, the police claimed that the Naxal activities had dwindled in the state as there was no sighting or a single pamphlet asking people to boycott elections. The top Naxal leaders – BGK, his wife Hosagadde Prabha, Mumdgaru Lata, Vikram Gowda, Vanajakshi and others had reportedly moved to Wayanad in Kerala, they added.
Recently, the police gathered information about some Maoists observing February 5 as “Lal Salaam” (Red Salute) day in Rajan’s memory. After two decades of lull, the naxal movement and activities were reported in parts of Chikmagalur, Dakshina Kannada, Udupi, and Kodagu. With Gowda’s death, there are only seven underground Naxals remaining in the state, the police said.