Unknown event in Karnataka, Hosagadde in Agumbe in Chikmagaluru District area, India on Sun 19th December 2021

A senior State committee member of the banned Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) from Hosagadde in Agumbe in Chikmagaluru District in Karnataka, about whom rumours said that she had died in 2010, surrendered herself following repeated appeals by her family and relatives in Tirupathur Police Station limits in Vellore District of Tamil Nadu on December 19, reports The Hindu. Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIGP), A G Babu (Vellore Range) said that Prabha alias Chandira alias Sandhya, surrendered after her husband B.G. Krishnamurthy, who was in charge of the ‘Special Zonal Committee’ for the Western Ghats region and the Karnataka State unit of the CPI-Maoist, was arrested by the Kerala Police on November 9. It is said that after the arrest of her husband, Prabha was suffering from depression. In 2010, rumour about the death of Prabha had spread, and a village elder had received a call from an unknown person asking her fellow villagers to pay last tributes to Prabha as she had died. Even though the Police too suspected that she was no more, the then Superintendent of Police (SP), Murugan, took the stand that till her body is recovered or concrete evidence was available, she could not be declared as dead. Later, the police got information that she was active in Kerala, adds daijiworld.com. The Police alleged the Maoists used Prabha for collection of money and rice through coercion. She joined the mainstream, aided by community policing and the outreach by the local Police and the ‘Q’ Branch Police in the remote villages of the district. DIGP, Babu said Prabha went underground in 2006, and since then, she had worked in the Western Ghats region and the Karnataka State unit. The Karnataka Police had announced a reward of INR 500,000 for anyone providing information leading to the arrest of her and her husband. She also went by the names Nethira, Vindu and Madhu, and has 44 cases against her in Udupi and Chikmagaluru. Krishnamurthy has 25 cases against him in Karnataka. DIGP, Babu appealed to all members of the banned organization to contact any of their relatives or the Police to surrender.