Mumbai, April 11
The Maharashtra government came in for criticism in the state assembly today following media reports of a Naxalite training camp being held in the suburbs of Pune nearly two years ago. After opposition parties raised the issue in the assembly Speaker Dilip Walse-Patil asked the government to investigate the reports. Walse-Patil then asked the government to make a statement in the house by tomorrow.

The Anti-Terror Squad of the Maharashtra police came across information on the training camp in Pune following the arrest of some

Naxalite leaders from the outskirts of Mumbai last year. Acting on a tip-off, the ATS had picked up Angela Sontakke, 42, who was secretary of the Communist Party of India (Maoist)'s Golden Corridor Committee and some of her associates. Police said Sontakke along with her husband Milind Telumbde, 54, conducted the camp in Pune where seven men and four women participated.

"Sontakke and others have been active in setting up support groups in cities like Mumbai and Pune," says a senior police official. The banned group was looking for sympathisers who could provide shelter for Maoists injured in police operations when they are brought to the cities for medical treatment. Apart from acting as a sleeper network, the sympathisers are used to attract fresh recruits into the Naxal movement, say police. The police have zeroed in on a cultural group called the Kabir Kala Manch, which they say, is an overground organisation of the Naxalites.