more-in Thunderbolt commandos and the police intensified the combing operations in the Kalladi forest area under the South Wayanad forest division on Saturday morning in search of a four-member armed group that reportedly confined three migrant labourers at a construction site at Thollayiram, near Mepadi, on Friday evening. Four persons, including a woman, reached the construction site of a resort adjacent to the forests at Thollayiram around 6.15 p.m. in military uniforms while four labourers from West Bengal were working. Though they requested rice and groceries, the workers could not follow the language of the armed group as they had come to the site only around 14 days ago. Meanwhile, a worker named Alavudeen took a photograph of the group on his mobile phone and it provoked the latter. However, Mr. Alavudeen managed to escape from the site and informed the agent who brought the workers there of the incident. The agent informed the owner of the estate and the police. When the other workers also left the site, the armed group took nearly 20 kg of rice and other provisions kept at the construction site, the police said. Though a platoon of Thunderbolts commandos reached the site on Saturday morning and made a search, they could not trace anyone, the police added. “We have identified that the armed group was led by Maoist leader Vikram Gowda,” Kalpetta Dy.SP Prinze Abraham told The Hindu. The other members of the group were identified as Soman, Unnimaya, and Santhosh.

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