Kishenji was trying to establish a contact with the Chinese and succeeded in getting an assurance through the rebel outfits of the Northeast for future help.
The Maoists have been actively pursuing contact with Chinese through the rebel groups in the Northeast, and Kishenji alias Mollujula Koteswararao, who was killed recently, played a key role in this effort, latest issue of Tehelka has reported.
Kishneji was one of the two Maoist Central Committee (MCC) members who attended a meeting with People’s Liberation Army (PLA), the armed wing of Revolutionary People’s Front (RPF) of Manipur to form a strategic united front.
On 22 March 2010, Kishenji sent a letter to the PLA in which he floated the idea of forming a grand alliance to unite all rebel groups in which the Maoists would take the lead role.
The PLA was given a contract of procuring Chinese-made rocket-propelled grenades, automatic rifles and high-end wireless sets. Kishenji was trying to develop secret links with other rebel groups in the Northeast, including the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) and the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Issac-Muivah) or NSCN(IM).
The latter’s chief arms procurer Anthony Shimray, who is in police custody now, confessed that a huge cache of arms for the Maoists was purchased from a Chinese company.
The PLA leaders had travelled to China, where urged the Chinese to help the Maoists and an “assurance” from the Chinese was sent through the PLA.
“The Maoist-PLA nexus might have taken several blows due to the arrest of various PLA cadre and Kishenji’s death but the worry for New Delhi is perhaps the fact that the Maoists have access not only to Northeast rebel outfits but through them to the Chinese as well,” Telhelka says.
