Naxals/Maoists Watch

[Pintu]

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100704/jsp/frontpage/story_12644222.jsp

Man killed with Azad a journalist
G.S. RADHAKRISHNA AND TAPAS CHAKRABORTY

The body of Pandey, identified
earlier as Sahdev by police

July 3: The man killed with Maoist leader Azad in an encounter yesterday was a freelance Hindi journalist who was interviewing him, Andhra Pradesh police have said a day after wrongly identifying the second victim as a guerrilla named Sahdev.

The family of Maoist sympathiser and Uttarakhand-based journalist Hemachandra Pandey, 35, had earlier got in touch with rights activists such as poet Varavara Rao in Andhra after seeing his pictures in newspapers, captioned "Sahdev".

In the 1990s, the police had shot dead an Urdu journalist, Gulam Rasool, along with a Maoist whom he was interviewing on Hyderabad's outskirts.

Cherukuri Rajkumar alias Azad, the Maoist No. 3, was camping with 20-25 guerrillas on a hillock in the Wankhidi forests of Adilabad to be interviewed by Pandey, a senior district police officer said.

Police patrols, tipped off about a Maoist leader's visit, surrounded the hideout after noticing movements through their night-vision binoculars, he said. "When the guerrillas refused to surrender and began shooting, the police retaliated. The rest of the Maoists ran away after they found their leader shot along with the interviewer."

Uttarakhand police, who have carried out a probe on a request from their Andhra counterparts, said Pandey had left his home in Pithoragarh, Kumaon, for Nagpur in Maharashtra on June 30 to do the interview. He apparently boarded a train from Haldiwani station, travelled to Delhi and then on to Nagpur.

Some of his friends and a brother, who is also a journalist, knew he was going on an assignment for a newspaper and a news channel, says the Uttarakhand police report that has been handed to the state government in Dehra Dun. The newspaper and the channel have denied commissioning any such interview.

Azad's mother Karuna and the Maoists have alleged that Azad was arrested with another person on Thursday at Bitaburdi in Nagpur — where he had gone to take political classes for cadres — brought to Adilabad and shot in a fake encounter.

"My husband had informed me about his visit to Nagpur for a scoop but did not tell us about the interview with Azad," Pandey's wife Babita, who reached Hyderabad this evening to receive the body, said. "We were aghast to see his photo in the newspapers this morning."

An officer in Adilabad said Pandey was identified as a freelance journalist from the visiting cards found in his pocket. "He did not have any accreditation card from any state government."

Andhra home minister Sabita Indra Reddy said: "How can one identify a journalist in pitch darkness on a remote hillock without any ID card?"

Pandey, a resident of Deventhal village, 23km from Pithoragarh town, had dabbled in Left politics as a college student. He later developed contacts among the rebels who would often sneak into Pithoragarh from across the Nepal border, an officer in Pithoragarh said. "He wrote articles on the rebels' activities for various newspapers and periodicals."

A journalist in Pithoragarh said: "Pandey has been in the profession for seven years. He was never afraid to express his ideology."

The Pithoragarh SP later told a TV channel that Pandey was not a journalist any more because he had not written anything recently for any publication. Local sources, however, said Pandey had got articles published recently in minor journals. They said Pandey did not have official accreditation as a journalist but carried out assignments for media houses.

 

[Pintu]

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...ned-Naxals-surrender-/articleshow/6125836.cms

Four 'disillusioned' Naxals surrender
TNN, Jul 4, 2010, 12.09am IST

WARANGAL: Four Naxalites belonging to different groups surrendered before police here on Saturday.

Among the quartet who surrendered before the SP here was CPI (Maoist) Dandakaranya special zonal committee of East Bastar Mahila team commander Bejjala Komala alias Vijayakka alias Susheela, resident of Mogilicherla village of Geesukonda mandal. She carried a reward of Rs 2 lakh on her head. Her husband Bejjala Raju alias Jagadeesh, had surrendered in March 2010 and according to police, she too was disillusioned with the Maoist ideology.

Komala started her work with the Chityala squad in 1997 and shortly became the Mahila team commander in the newly created East Bastar Division in Dandakaranya. She was involved in a murder case and the burning of 8 RTC buses.

Another Naxalite who surrendered was Mankanti Vidyasagar Reddy alias Sagar, a Dalam member of Mahadevpur-Eturnagaram area committee. Police said he was suffering from malaria and decided to come out to get treatment. He is a resident of Peddapendyala village of Dharmasagar mandal.

CPI (ML) Praja Prathighatana zonal committee secretary Thallapally Srinivas alias Srinu alias Ravi and his wife, Dalam member Koram Swaroom were the other two who surrendered. Disillusionment with the ideology was stated to be the reason for them joining the mainstream.

 

[nandu]

Maoists say he was 'Comrade Hem', family says 'could not be a Naxal'

Two days after he was killed in an alleged encounter in Adilabad district of Andhra Pradesh, Hemchandra Pandey's family members maintained that he "could not have been a Naxalite". On the other hand, the CPI(Maoist), in a statement issued today, said Pandey was a "zonal committee member in Uttarakhand", and had joined the former CPI(ML) People's War in 2001.

Pandey, 32, was gunned down in the reported encounter on July 2 along with central committee member 'Azad' Cherukuri Rajkumar.

On June 30, when Pandey left his home in New Delhi, he told his wife, Babita, that he was going to Nagpur for a few days. He travelled light — just a few clothes, a Hindi journal on economics, and a few other notes. For the next few days, his cellphone remained unavailable.

"He said he had some work regarding an article. I never used to interfere in his work," said Babita, who met Pandey in college — PG College, Pithoragarh — where he was two years senior to her.

Pandey did his MA in economics from the college. "He was very good in economics and was even pursuing his PhD in the subject. He used to read all the time on economics and politics. He was weak in English, but he had started concentrating on that too. He loved movies — Page 3, Taare Zameen Par, he watched them all," recalled Babita, who was married to Pandey for the last eight years.

She came to know of her husband's death on Saturday, when her brother Vijay Vardhan Upreti, a journalist with ETV Uttarakhand, saw a photograph of the bodies of Pandey and Azad in a Telugu newspaper. "I was not sure, but the resemblance was unmistakble. The photograph was of Hem," said Upreti, who chanced upon the newspaper at a function held by the Gandhi Peace Foundation in New Delhi to discuss the way ahead after Azad's death.

"He could not have been a Naxalite. He was active in politics during his student days. In fact, he had twice fought the elections for the post of general secretary of AISA, but lost both times. He was an activist, he was involved in the movement for statehood for Uttarakhand as well as in the Jungle Andolan in Binsar," Upreti added.

Pandey's parents were both school teachers. His brother, Rajiv Pandey, is a journalist with a Hindi daily. Pandey too wrote for various Hindi dailies under the pen name Hemant Pandey. He also worked in the corporate communication department of DARCL Logistics Limited, a firm based in Delhi, for a monthly salary of Rs 15,865.

"He was working on their in-house magazine, Chetna," said Babita.

Contrary to his family's statements, the CPI(Maoist) said today that "Comrade Hem Pandey of Uttarakhand" had joined the then CPI(ML) People's War in 2001. "He organised peasantry in the mountainous villages in Almora district, taking up umpteen number of issues... Softspoken, bespectacled, lean and energetic, Comrade Hem won the love of people of that region. He was moved into more important works in 2005. He had done his new assignments with patience and endurance," it added.

According to the Maoists' statement , the Andhra Police Special Branch arrested Azad and Pandey in Nagpur on June 1, when they had gone to meet a comrade. It said the duo were "abducted", and "perhaps flown in a helicopter, to Adilabad jungles near Maharashtra border and killed in cold blood".

"Even if he was a Maoist supporter, why kill him without any evidence," said Babita.


http://www.indianexpress.com/news/m...hem-family-says-could-not-be-a-naxal/642262/0

 

[Phenom]

It's fascinating to see how the media uses the " " (quotes)
When the forces say disillusioned Moaist surrender, the word 'disillusioned' is put under quotes, pointing out that the Cops are saying disillusioned but it may or may not be true.
I have seen the same thing vis-a-vis Kashmir as well, when the military says the killed terrorist, the word 'terrorist' is used under quotes, but when separatist say the military has killed civilians, the word civilian is used without quotes.

Imagine what the reader would make out of this, after reading both they headlines.

 

[bhramos]

'I do not believe the Maoists are exploiters'- former BSF director general

Distinguished IPS officer E N Rammohan, a former BSF director general who was especially called by the Centre to look into the massacre of 75 CRPF personnel in Dantewada on April 6 this year, is a deeply perturbed man. To him, the unfolding labyrinth of Maoist insurgency is being tackled in an utterly unprofessional manner by the Indian State. And, if this course is not corrected quickly, he says it could develop into an inferno, engulfing vast tracts of the country, including urban centres which the government now consider as safe zones.
Despite being a thoroughbred police officer from the Assam cadre who dealt with insurgencies in the troubled states of the Northeast and Jammu and Kashmir, Rammohan's prescription to tackle the Maoists
insurgency relies far less on security perspective and more on the socioeconomic aspects. "Give land to the tiller and forests back to the tribals. Implement these two things with the help of strong willed and honest administration," he says. "Plus, bring down the vast gap between the rich and the poor and you would start witnessing that Maoists are on the wane."
In a freewheeling threehour chat in Delhi where he lives, Rammohan lets out his anger against a social system without any remorse. "You are wrong if you think that doling out money through funds and schemes can help solve the problem. The money will be routed back here, to Delhi, in to the deep pockets of corrupt politicians, bureaucrats and businessmen. The answer, as I said, is absolute implementation of the Land Ceiling Act and giving forests and its resources, including the lucrative mineral wealth, back to the tribals," he retorts.
"Why cannot we, a welfare state based on socialist tenets, do the same with our tribal people that America and Australia did for their past mistakes against Red Indians and Aborigines by seeking their forgiveness and giving back reserved lands to them?"
he says. Despite the fact that his family lost vast tracts of land during the "Land to the Tiller" movement in his native Kerala, Rammohan is an ardent supporter of late Communist chief minister EMS Namboodaripad. "I have no regrets, no illusions. EMS did the right thing. It is because of his policies that the Maoist insurgency could not take root there. If other states followed the same exa mple you would see that more than half of the problem is gone."
"You know it is caste and the unbridled exploitation carried through it that is the root cause of the problem. For how long can you hide that the majority of the people have been reeling under this exploitation for ages? Can their aspirations for a just society be quelled by quickfix solutions like deploying security forces or the Army? No, it is a gross misnomer and the sooner our leaders understand this, the better for the country."
"If you bring the Army in, the situation will improve temporarily as they will quell the rebellion. But the quiet will remain only for some time. It is like putting a lid on a boiling pot only to let it explode later. Without the permanent removal of social injustice the insurgency will come back again, perhaps more viciously," he adds.
Rammohan's take on the Maoists is radically different from most of his colleagues. "I do not believe in the propaganda that they are extortionists and exploiters. Their leadership comes from a determined lot of people who lost faith in our system because of its failure to remove injustices, and took to a violent ideology to form an equal society. Their intention is not bad, the method is.
"Ownership of the land has always been with three upper castes - the Kshatriyas, Brahmins and the Vaishyas. Among these, the Vaishyas or the Baniyas - the Marwaris, Chettiyars, Reddys and the Kammas - have been the most vicious. Besides land, they also exploit the lower castes and the tribals while doing business with them. The police - the supposed protectors - also help the baniya, the exploiter and not the poor tribal, the exploited. Naturally, he goes to the Maoist fold that has given him justice by distributing land and punishing the baniya," he laments.
"It is beyond my comprehension why our State develops cold feet when it comes to removing injustices. Why cannot India, the so called welfare that has socialism as one of its tenets, make the society more equal?" he questions and then proposes his own remedy.
"The upper castes should be prevented from entering the forests altogether. The baniyas, including their modern avatar, the corporate, should be barred from having business and only the tribals should be allowed to carry out their trade, including mining, through cooperatives owned by them."
The genesis of the Maoist insurgency, acc ording to Rammohan, goes back to the Tebhaga Movement of 1946 when the undivided CPI started working with the exploited peasants in the Rangpur and Dinajpur regions of Bengal and forcibly took away land from the exploiter landlords. It then spread to the Telangana region during 1946 to 1951. And then came the Naxalbari insurrection of 1967 after the split of the CPI.
"It spread among Girijans (tribals) of Srikakulam in 1968 and during the same time to Midnapore and Birbhum districts of West Bengal and then among peasants of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Its spread widened to Andhra, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra and Bihar again in 1980s. Wherever you see, the spread took place because our so called welfare democracy could not get the poor their due," says Rammohan, getting back to his sober self.
The former DG, who still has a gait that can rival officers half his age, differs hugely with the present government policy of dealing with the Maoists with the help of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF).
"Instead of hunting down Maoist guerrillas, the paramilitary forces should be used to enforce the right of the tribals on forests and its wealth. And in place of the CRPF, the Centre should use more disciplined and resolute force like BSF and ITBP. The state police should be put under strict supervision so that it works only in the interest of the tribals," he says.

http://expressbuzz.com/magazine/i-do-not-believe-the-maoists-are-exploiters/184324.html

 

[Iamanidiot]

the old man is echoing a part of my view.Good adminstration will automatically destroy maoism.Andhra Pradesh started giving good adminstration coupled with ruthless policing and surgical killing you will be able to destroy Maoism.This guy seems to be a telugu fellow.Speaking of Kammas and reddies.

But I beg to differ on so,e issues the tendu leaves can be given to tribal co-operatives but certtainly not mining.The maoist can only operate in a densely jungle environment the central indian jungles provide that exactly.they can't operate with the same impunity in the rural countryside.Plus north india and central are utterly undeveloped and all the social evils he stated will be present.

My suggestion remove moneylenders from the chattisgrah and jharkhand as a whole

 

[bhramos]

the old man is echoing my view.Good adminstration will automatically destroy maoism.Andhra Pradesh started giving good adminstration coupled with ruthless policing and surgical killing you will be able to destroy Maoism.This guy seems to be a telugu fellow.Speaking of Kammas and reddies

yaa me too same opinion, we cant kill maoism by gun, what we need is development?
which will automatically destroy the idea of rebels from the brain of people.

 

[Iamanidiot]

yaa me too same opinion, we cant kill maoism by gun, what we need is development?
which will automatically destroy the idea of rebels from the brain of people.

right now the maoists can never gain a foothold in south india where there is good governance.Neither in AP,Karnataka ,Kerala or Tamil Nadu.Why the heck one would carry a bandook in these states.Again gujarat is one state Maoiism does not take place

 

[Iamanidiot]

yaa me too same opinion, we cant kill maoism by gun, what we need is development?
which will automatically destroy the idea of rebels from the brain of people.

When N.T Rama Rao removed the Patel-Patwari system in whole of Andhra Maoism got its first blow.Later both Chandra Babu naidu and YSR did good adminstration with ruthless policing eleminated them all together.

Paaji listen to the Telugus advice and implement it nationwide

In short Accountability will destroy maoism

 

[bhramos]

right now the maoists can never gain a foothold in south india where there is good governance.Neither in AP,Karnataka ,Kerala or Tamil Nadu.Why the heck one would carry a bandook in these states.Again gujarat is one state Maoiism does not take place

where their are land lords and exploiters, their is maoism.
i hated the idea of killing Azad in AP, that to in a peace place, the police is trying to show till naxalites are their in AP and participating in Telangana Movement.
if they wanted to kill him why cant they kill him in Chatisgarh or Maharastra.
may they are bringing them and killing them in their own state as azad is from Krishna district.

 

[bhramos]

When N.T Rama Rao removed the Patel-Patwari system in whole of Andhra Maoism got its first blow.Later both Chandra Babu naidu and YSR did good adminstration with ruthless policing eleminated them all together.

Paaji listen to the Telugus advice and implement it nationwide

In short Accountability will destroy maoism

in some states in their villages Taqures and jamindharis still exist mainly in Bihar, UP and Jharkand............
they cant change it, if they can, everything will come in control and peace to India, then we can concentrate on our Foe nations.

 

[Iamanidiot]

the Thalkur ,karnam,Chowdary and Muwaddam along with the moneylender must be removed at the village level

 

[Iamanidiot]

One good thing the North-indian state governments must accelerate development.Other wise the netas will be slaughtered next

 

[tarunraju]

right now the maoists can never gain a foothold in south india where there is good governance.Neither in AP,Karnataka ,Kerala or Tamil Nadu.Why the heck one would carry a bandook in these states.Again gujarat is one state Maoiism does not take place

the old man is echoing a part of my view.Good adminstration will automatically destroy maoism.Andhra Pradesh started giving good adminstration coupled with ruthless policing and surgical killing you will be able to destroy Maoism.This guy seems to be a telugu fellow.Speaking of Kammas and reddies.

But I beg to differ on so,e issues the tendu leaves can be given to tribal co-operatives but certtainly not mining.The maoist can only operate in a densely jungle environment the central indian jungles provide that exactly.they can't operate with the same impunity in the rural countryside.Plus north india and central are utterly undeveloped and all the social evils he stated will be present.

My suggestion remove moneylenders from the chattisgrah and jharkhand as a whole

That doesn't answer the chicken-egg paradox of "how to develop with maoists around, they blow up schools, roads, and everything we do to develop those areas", a convenient excuse the government comes up with.

No development = maoism

Maoism = no development.

That's the chicken-egg paradox. Therefore, real weapons are the best weapons in the fight against Maoism. Fight guerrillas like guerrillas.

When N.T Rama Rao removed the Patel-Patwari system in whole of Andhra Maoism got its first blow.Later both Chandra Babu naidu and YSR did good adminstration with ruthless policing eleminated them all together.

Paaji listen to the Telugus advice and implement it nationwide

In short Accountability will destroy maoism

Nah, low-level money-lending and loan-shark system hasn't gone. It's still very much there, but at least in the districts I've been to (Telangana districts), they're being systematically eliminated by competition using rural cooperative banks such as Sri Saraswathi Grameera Bank, Deccan Grameera Bank.

The thing that keeps maoism out of AP is a paid-truce. Although not documented by the media, many of us believe that successive AP governments maintained a conditional truce with Maoists/Naxalites, in return for logistical support and safe-asylum for them in AP. It just so happened that Azad was a high-value target. Both parties breach the truce now and then.

Smaller factions were obliterated by Grey Hounds, which is genuinely the most efficient paramilitary force in the country.

 

[samarsingh]

The thing that keeps maoism out of AP is a paid-truce. Although not documented by the media, many of us believe that successive AP governments maintained a conditional truce with Maoists/Naxalites, in return for logistical support and safe-asylum for them in AP. It just so happened that Azad was a high-value target. Both parties breach the truce now and then.

kind of seems plausible, do you have any link which supports this
but isn't it a very myopic view of finding a solution, its like outsourcing the problem to nearby states...

 

[tarunraju]

kind of seems plausible, do you have any link which supports this
but isn't it a very myopic view of finding a solution, its like outsourcing the problem to nearby states...

No there are no links that support that. Like I said, it's not documented anywhere.

Yes it's myopic, but to the state government it's the cheapest way to keep Maoism at bay, and not have to develop the areas that need it the most. The only long term solution is spending money on development (with the Maoists away), and that will be a herculean task with so much public money at hand.

And at the state-government level, it's pretty-much "to each its own".

 

[ajtr]

Spl wing puts Naxals on mat​

The special Intelligence Branch (SIB) of the Andhra Pradesh Police has come into focus again with the killing of Communist Party of India (Maoist) spokesperson and politburo member Cherukuri Rajkumar alias Azad.

A specialised wing set up by the state police to deal exclusively with Maoist activities across the state, the SIB has achieved major breakthroughs in the last five years. This has resulted in a decimation of the Maoist movement in the state and the arrest of several Maoist leaders in the country.

The last one- and- a- half decade saw several Maoist leaders, including the party's central committee ( CC) members, getting killed in encounters or arrested by the Andhra Pradesh Police, thanks to the pro- active SIB. The CC members who were killed in encounters include Shyam, Mahesh, Murali, Chandramouli, Sande Rajamouli, Prasad, Patel Sudhakar Reddy and Sakhamuri Appa Rao. Several other top leaders, including Kobad Ghandy, Malla Raji Reddy, B. Prasad Singh alias Balraj, Amit Bagchi, Pankaj, Bansidhar Singh alias Chintanda and Tushar Kanth Bhattacharya, were arrested either directly by the sleuths of the Andhra SIB or with the help of their inputs.

" That is the strength of our SIB. We have specialised intelligence wings not at a state- level, but in every district.

This works in tandem with the district police. The SIB's only function is to track the movements of the Maoists," an intelligence officer said.

Backed by unlimited funds, the SIB has spread its network across Maoist strongholds. " Normally, we share inputs with the central intelligence wing, but most of the times, we conduct operations on our own," the official said.

The SIB has a network of undercover operators who report directly to the headquarters and pass on information to the local superintendents of police before attacking the targets. " The fact that the Adilabad SP came to know about Azad's killing only in the last minute itself shows how secretly the SIB operates," the official said.

Maoist leaders also acknowledge the efficacy of the SIB. " On March 11, the Andhra SIB almost caught Azad. Since then, the sleuths have kept an eye on Maoist movements in Maharashtra. On Friday, they picked him up along with another guerrilla, took them to Adilabad and killed them in a fake encounter," CPI ( Maoist) Dandakarayna special zone spokesman Gudsa Usendi said.

The CPI ( Maoist) accused the SIB of encouraging covert activities to destroy them. " It pushes moles into the party. A majority of the encounter killings is only because of infiltration of moles into the movement," a Maoist sympathiser said.

 

[shuvo@y2k10]

i think all the maoist (including the surrenderered ones) must be ruthlessly gunned down,the same treatment should be meeted out to them , as the do with the people who they brand as "police informers".

 

[bhramos]

Red star over India

Does Left Extremism really pose a threat to India's security or is it something the media hyped up? After all, they do not question India's territorial integrity and apparently are not working as proxies of powers hostile to India. They, at best, want a regime change, albeit through violence, which many others would also vote for. They raise issues of hunger and poverty. These and other nuances notwithstanding, the straight answer to the question is: Left Extremism poses a very real threat which has to be fought with total resolve. Any obfuscation would lead to increased costs and prolonged agony. Naxalites use violence to achieve their political objectives and target innocent lives and thus fully meet the definition of terrorism. Diluting India's principled position that the "core issue" argument does not justify terror would have serious implications. But let us examine why is it really a high potential threat.

First, they seek to bring about change through violence and annihilation of arbitrarily identified class enemies. In-built is destruction of all that free India stands for. If hypothetically, the "revolution" succeeds and the new dispensation becomes tyrannical, oppressive and corrupt, which with the exercise of absolute power it's bound to, how does one get rid of it? Backed by the might of a totally politicised state apparatus, it would be unchangeable except through civil war or foreign intervention. Fortunately this is a remote threat.

Second, Naxalites feel no ideological compunction in aligning with and supporting forces adversarial to India's security interests. In the name of supporting nationalist minorities, they support secessionists in Kashmir, insurgents in Northeast, LTTE in Sri Lanka and CPN (Maoist) in Nepal. Charu Majumdar, their role model, opposed India in the Bangladesh war. Support for the 1962 Chinese aggression is an old story. So much for their ideology of supporting people's movements against oppressive regimes. Similarly, in the name of class war, in Bihar and Jharkhand, they indulge in the worst form of caste violence. They have a self-serving definition of "have nots" and exercise ruthless violence against the landless and tribals who do not support them. The massacre of Salwa Judum tribals illustrates this. Over 90 per cent of civilian victims of their violence are poor. Under the veneer of revolutionary ideology lies a ruthless ambition for absolute power.

Third, the "revolution" continues to gather strength, engulf new areas, militarise itself and make large areas of the country non-governable. Naxalites stun to submission the poor and the deprived and the state is unable to provide protection or even undertake schemes for their socio-economic uplift due to a vitiated security environment. Naxalites have a vested interest in perpetuating poverty to conserve and expand their constituency. Their area of dominance runs into thousands of sq km, one Punjab getting added to it every two years. This will erode India's state power, retard its growth, prevent social and economic uplift of the poor and downtrodden and make the political process hostage to the politics of violence. This is the real danger.

Taking the trends of the last five years, we can build a model of the security scenario for the year 2010. Over 260 districts, nearly half of India, would be Naxal affected where the government's writ hardly runs. If we add to this the insurgencies in the Northeast, militancy in J&K and the scourge of Islamic terrorism, India's overall internal security landscape presents a frightening picture. The strength of left-wing armed cadres would soar from the existing 7,500 to over 16,000, with backup support of thousands of "revolutionary" militia. Their arsenal may be in the range of 12,000 to 15,000 sophisticated weapons. Jan adalats where spot justice is dispensed, extending to beheadings, may increase from the present three per week to one a day. Collection of taxes estimated to be in the range of Rs 17 crore per month may soar to over Rs 40 crore. This money power in economically backward and inaccessible tribal areas can cause havoc.

In this scenario, visualise Indian security forces thinly deployed in the countryside facing murderous crowds in the thousands, many equipped with automatic weapons. The force, in self-defence, will either over-react leading to unacceptable civilian casualties or will be disarmed and possibly lynched. It is noteworthy that despite a sizeable army and paramilitary presence, domination of the Kashmir Valley and six worst affected districts of Punjab proved difficult.

We should doctrinally accept it as a problem of terrorism and deal with it as such. On Thursday the PM recommended enhanced inter-state cooperation. He should call an all party meeting and build a consensus against providing any space to Naxalites for electoral gains or political appeasement. Proactively invoking Article 355 of the Constitution, legislation should be enacted empowering the Centre to suo motu deploy Central forces in badly affected areas. State governments may be informed that provisions of Articles 365/352 could be invoked in the eventuality of breakdown of constitutional machinery if they fail to control the problem.

The number of policemen available for per one lakh population in all the Naxal-affected states is amongst the lowest and much below the national average of 123 — Bihar 56, Chhattisgarh 92, Jharkhand 74, Orissa 92. At least 150 policemen per one lakh population must be made available. More important is qualitative upscaling of manpower. Operational capabilities of state intelligence, right up to the police station level, must be built for undertaking tactical operations. Concerted efforts to choke Naxals' sources of finance and channels of procuring weapons also deserves high priority.

A concerted effort should be made to access the affected population to disabuse them of misleading propaganda. The media, think-tanks and NGOs operating in these region could be enlisted. These are only some illustrative policy ideas which need to be converted into a comprehensive action plan.

The writer was director, Intelligence Bureau. [email protected]

the good article but old one.

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/redstaroverindia/2438/0

 

[Oracle]

Maoists fire at Chhattisgarh camps

Naxalites [ Images ] late Wednesday fired at three CRPF camps in Chhattisgarh simultaneously, prompting the troops to retaliate, but no casualty was reported.

The firing which started at around 2130 hours at the CRPF camps at Narayanpur, Dantewada and Bijapur districts, went on for an hour, senior CRPF officials said adding, it was carried out by Naxalites to "provoke" the troops.

At Narayanpur, which saw an ambush by Maoists on June 29 killing 27 security personnel, Naxals fired at the 39th battalion camp of the force near Edka village. The other two firing incidents took place at Polampalli in Dantewada and Basaguda in Bijapur districts.

"Ten rounds have been fired from both the sides and the firing took place from a distance at Narayanpur," district Superintendent of Police Rahul Bhagat said.

The Naxals fled the sites when security forces returned fire, officials said.

http://news.rediff.com/report/2010/jul/07/naxals-fire-at-crpf-camps-at-chattisgarh.htm