Maoist ideologue Satyamurthy dead

Hyderabad, April 17 (IANS) K.G. Satyamurthy, a Maoist ideologue and one of the founders of the People's War Group (PWG), died in Andhra Pradesh's Krishna district Tuesday. He was 84.

Satyamurthy, a Dalit leader and a revolutionary Telugu writer and poet, died after prolonged illness at Kandulapadu of G. Kondur mandal in the district, about 350 km from here.

He is survived by two sons and two daughters.

Several sympathisers of the Maoist movement and poets, writers and artists are expected to participate in his last rites Wednesday.

He was one of the founders of the Communist Party of India-Marxist Leninist (CPI-ML), popularly known as the PWG. The outfit merged with the Maoist Communist Centre in 2004 to form the Communist Party of India-Maoist.

He was teaching English at Fatima School in Warangal in the late 1960s when he met Kondapalli Seetharamaiah, a Hindi teacher at the same school.

The duo joined the Maoist movement in the 1970s but were unhappy with the mainstream Marxist parties. In 1984, they together founded the PWG.

Using the pen name Shiv Sagar, Satyamurthy wrote poetry and visited villages to organise squads.

Popularly known as SM in PWG ranks, he played a key role in building the outfit. Hailing from Mala caste, he fought against casteism and worked hard for social equality.

Following differences with Seetharamaiah and other leaders, he later came out of the PWG. He criticised the domination of the upper caste leaders in the outfit.