Separatist Insurgencies in India - News and Discussions.

[brahmastra]

Four jawans killed, Maoists claim responsibility

Four Eastern Frontier Rifle (EFR) jawans were killed in a surprise assault by Maoists here in West Midnapore on Sunday, hours after Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee wrapped up a two-day visit to the violence-hit district even as a top Maoist leader claimed responsibility for the attack.

Claiming responsibility for the killings, top Maoist leader Koteshar Rao alias Kishanji on Sunday night dared the Central and State governments to deploy as much forces as they wanted in the embattled area.

“We have killed the four jawans as they tortured innocent school children who had taken out a rally in the area on Saturday demanding the educational institutions be vacated by joint security forces and their classes resume at the earliest, Kishenji told PTI from an undisclosed location on Sunday night.

“Seven EFR jawans were patrolling near a police camp close to a school in Gidhni bazar area under Jamboni police station when the ultras fired at them from sophisticated weapons.

IGP (Law and Order) Surajit Kar Purakayastha said while four died on the spot, three others managed to escape.

As the three jawans returned soon and retaliated the ultras melted into the jungles. The ultras also looted the arms of the four slain jawans.

To a question if the attack was a challenge posed by the Maoists to West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee who left the district just hours back, Kishenji retorted “but we have long before challenged the central and state governments, and as I have just said, the war is on.”

“We will win the war. Let Centre deploy as much forces they want,” he challenged.

Late on Sunday, the bullet-riddled bodies of Naresh Thapa, Vivek Narang, Dhankumar Biswakarma and another EFR jawan were recovered and being taken to Jhargram for post-mortem.

Reinforcements and senior police officers were camping at the site.

The attack came a day after the killing of three youths, again hours before the chief minister’s arrival in the district.

The bullet-riddled bodies Lakhi Das, Jayram Mandi and Manoranjan, all Jharkhand Party activits and stated to be members of CPI(M) backed-Maoist resistance group in the area, were found with their hands and legs tied on a road in Kusbani jungle, about 70 km from Midnapore town.

The ultras had also shot at and injured a former Marxist legislator.

 

[brahmastra]

Maoists blow up ex-comrade's house in Jharkhand


Chatra (Jharkhand), Nov 21 (PTI) Maoists blew up a house of their former colleague at Charkakala village in this district, police said today.

A group of Maoists went to the residence of Nehal Khan, asked his family members to vacate the house and triggered a dynamite blast last night, Superintendent of Police D B Sharma told reporters here.

Khan was not at his house when the incident occurred. A note left by Maoists accused Khan of running away with their money.

 

[brahmastra]

Maoists kill CPI(M) leader


Kolkata, Nov 23 (PTI) Suspected Maoists shot dead a local leader of the CPI(M) in Jhargram area of West Midnapore district today, police said.

Tapan Mahto, a member of CPI(M)'s Salbani branch committee, was called out from his Sirshi village home by some people last night and was taken to an isolated place and gunned down.

His body was found this morning at Boria near Jhargram, the sources said adding he was shot in the head thrice from a close range.

Some Maoists posters found beside the body claimed that he was killed because he was a police informer.

 

[grey boy 2]

India drives tribals into Maoist arms
By Sudha Ramachandran

KORAPUT, Orissa - Six weeks after police action in Narayanpatna in Koraput district in the eastern state of Orissa left two tribals dead and scores of others injured, tension here shows no signs of abating.

Arbitrary arrests of tribals continue with about 109, including at least 12 children, thrown in jail so far on charges that include criminal conspiracy, rioting, sedition and waging war against the state - and police and paramilitary forces have stepped up operations to hunt down activists of the Chasi Mulia Adivasi Sangha (CMAS), a tribal rights organization active in the area.

The CMAS activists have retreated deep into the forests, where they are said to be regrouping. "The hunt for CMAS activists and the intimidation of tribals by the police has forced tribals to seek refuge in the surrounding forests, which are Maoist hideouts," a senior official in Koraput told Asia Times Online. "By their actions, the police are pushing the tribals to turn Maoist."

This is the case not just in Narayanpatna but also across villages and towns in India's tribal areas in Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Bengal and Andhra Pradesh. Police atrocities against tribals are fueling support for the Maoists.

Tribals are the most marginalized section of Indian society, worse off than even the Dalits (formerly referred to as Untouchables). Around 49.5% of tribals live under the official poverty line, 76.2% are illiterate and almost 30% have no access whatsoever to doctors in clinics. Displaced from their land and discriminated against in the industrial job market they are now fighting to keep their land, their only remaining resource.

With peaceful agitations and democratic institutions having failed to redress their grievances or provide them with a modicum of justice, tribal alienation in India's democracy has grown at a massive pace. And it is among this anger and alienation that Maoists are increasingly finding support and recruits.

India's Maoists believe in armed struggle to overthrow the state and bring socio-economic change. Many tribals say that they are opposed to the use of violence but are left with no option but to pick up the gun to counter the violence of the state and of its police and paramilitary forces. Many tribals still engage in mass politics and agitations to address their grievances. But are being pushed by the state to embrace Maoism and armed struggle.

And the line between tribal political activism and Maoist armed struggle is increasingly blurring with Maoists often coming forward to endorse and support tribal causes. The targets of Maoist violence are often those who exploit the tribals or harass them, like landlords, police and moneylenders.

Analysts have been pointing out that it is the failure of the state to address tribal grievances that is fueling support for the Maoists and their growing influence in the country. But the state seems to think that eliminating the Maoists militarily will resolve the problem.

A massive military offensive to eliminate Maoists was launched recently in the forests of Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh and Orissa. About 80,000 troops have been deployed here, with another 20,000 more to be sent in the coming weeks. This, in an area that has around 2 million people, over half of whom are tribal.

While officials far away from the battlegrounds sound confident of success, those at ground zero are not optimistic. There is a feeling that as the anti-Maoist offensive gathers steam, tribal alienation from the state - already dangerously high - will soar.

"The CMAS will grow, gain ground and capture Narayanpatna," the Koraput official warns.

Police officials say they are hunting down CMAS activists as they are engaging in violence and "anti-people activity". However, it is hard to dispel the feeling that the police action against the tribal organization has more to do with protecting the interests of powerful sections in the area.

The CMAS has been mobilizing tribals to take back land that was illegally grabbed from them by non-tribal landlords and moneylenders. And it has been successful in re-appropriating about 800 hectares acres of land. Not surprisingly, this has raised the hackles of the non-tribal landlords. The growing assertiveness of the CMAS has rattled mining companies and the liquor mafia, as well.

This motley group of private mining companies, the liquor mafia, land grabbers and contractors is reported to be behind the setting up of shanti (or peace) committees in Koraput, Malkangiri and other districts to counter tribal organizations like the CMAS.

Orissa has rich mineral deposits. It has 70% of all of India's bauxite reserves (the sixth-largest deposit in the world), 90% of India's chrome ore and nickel and 24% of its coal. But tribals inhabit much of this mineral-rich land. Mining companies - Indian and multinational - have been lining up to extract this wealth. But tribal agitations and Maoist violence have been blocking their ambitions.

Informed sources in Koraput say that mining companies are putting money into shanti committees to clip the wings of the CMAS and other similar tribal organizations.

While shanti committee members in Koraput and Malkangiri say that they came together "spontaneously" to counter the "forcible grabbing of land and looting of crops by outfits like the CMAS", it does seem that the local administration has played a role in putting them together.

Worse, it appears to be backing the shanti committees' activities. Shanti committees have been attacking and beating up tribal activists, even murdering them. Members of an independent fact-finding team who went to Narayanpatna to investigate the November police-firing incident were beaten up.

Still no action has been taken against the shanti committees. P K Sahni, deputy superintendent of police, Koraput, said that the activities of the shanti committees are "peaceful, legal and democratic". Its members are not taking the law into their own hands. Hence, "no cases have been filed against them".

In contrast to their handling of the shanti committees with kid gloves, stands the police's extra-tough approach to the CMAS. The Koraput police have called for a ban on the organization.

Non-governmental organization activists in Koraput point out that the CMAS campaign to re-appropriate land grabbed from tribals is not illegal. The Orissa government has enacted laws recognizing the tribals' right over ancestral land and prohibiting the transfer of land to non-tribals. If the CMAS has been forcibly re-appropriating land this is because tribal appeals to the state for justice have fallen on deaf ears.

The CMAS has been a political movement so far, working for tribal rights through mass mobilization of tribals, agitations and protests. It is the police and the powerful interests they are protecting that are pushing them underground by hounding its activists, arresting them and calling for a ban on the organization.

There are striking similarities between what is happening in Orissa with the controversial salwa judum (peace march) in neighboring Chhattisgarh. Like Orissa, Chhattisgarh's southern districts of Bastar and Dantewada are rich in minerals. And as in Orissa, tribals who have been resisting the takeover of their land by the state and private mining companies inhabit these areas.

Vigilante groups peopled by tribals, armed by the state and reportedly funded by mining companies and liquor mafias to counter the Maoists active here, have wreaked havoc in Dantewada and Bastar since 2005. The cycle of violence and counter-violence triggered by the salwa judum is reported to have driven tens of thousands of tribals out of their land - an important goal of the mining companies and landlords who fund the vigilante violence.

It does seem that Orissa's shanti committees are aiming to achieve a similar goal in mineral-rich Koraput and other areas.

The ongoing military operations supposedly against the Maoists will enable the police and the mining companies, landlords and liquor mafias they protect to get rid of the tribals, all in the name of fighting the "Maoist terrorists".

Tribal activists in Malkangiri Asia Times Online spoke to say they are not Maoist as they are working overground and engage in mass politics instead of armed struggle. But this is a difference that the police do not or rather do not want to see. Police have apparently told them that when the paramilitary forces reach their village, tribals and Maoists will be treated similarly.

India's tribal heartlands can expect a bloodbath.

Sudha Ramachandran is an independent journalist/researcher based in Bangalore.
Asia Times Online :: South Asia news, business and economy from India and Pakistan

 

[Novice09]

Thousands of Indian paramilitary troops and state policemen have launched a large offensive against Maoist rebels across five states this week.

The offensive specifically targets top Maoist leaders, a senior interior ministry official told the BBC.

"The offensive has started. The federal government is trying to co-ordinate it but not take command of it," he said.

The government says the five states where the offensive is taking place are the worst affected by Maoist violence.

Home Minister P Chidambaram is personally co-ordinating the operation in West Bengal, Jharkhand, Orissa, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra.

"The purpose of this operation is not to engage in gun-battles but to re-assert the authority of civil-administration in areas dominated by the Maoists," Mr Chidambaram said on Friday.

He said that the progress of the offensive was "satisfactory" so far.

The Maoists have a presence in more than 200 across 20 states, officials say. They say that they are fighting for communist rule and the rights of poor peasants and the landless.

More than 6,000 people have died during their 20-year fight.

'Headless condition'

"Law and order is a state subject under the Indian constitution, so we have requested the states affected by Maoist violence to do their bit," the home ministry official said.

"We want to drive them into a headless condition, so we will go after the leadership," he said, "but we don't want a Sri Lanka-type operation that could cause much collateral damage to innocent civilians.

"So we are specifically targeting the Maoist leadership and you will see a lot of special operations based on specific intelligence."

The official said that "almost all the states are doing their bit", and that a special operation in West Bengal earlier this week - in which Maoist military wing chief Koteswara Rao narrowly escaped arrest - was a good example of that.

Railway minister Mamata Banerji - who has been accused by West Bengal's government of having links with the Maoists - visited the Junglemahal region at the weekend, and asked the rebels to stop the violence and join negotiations with Delhi.

However the Maoists rejected her appeal, immediately prompting Delhi to give the go-ahead for the latest offensive.

Officials say that 42 battalions of the paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) are taking part.

Mr Chidambaram has promised more forces to any state if that was required.

He said that the government was left with no option but to act because the Maoists have not responded to peace overtures.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8474191.stm

This is the a serious step which has been taken by the GoI to counter naxalites after their frequent denial for talks.

States:

West Bengal
Chhattisgarh
Maharashtra
Orissa
Jharkhand is moving slow on anti-naxal operation

Forces involved in action:

CRPF
ITBP
BSF
State Forces

Any other constructive update on this topic will be helpful.

 

[amarnath]

Yes these beasts must be Killed, COBRA commandos are taking part in This? They are the anti naxellite force...

 

[Novice09]

Yes these beasts must be Killed,

They are not the beasts they are our brothers who took gun when they were abused. But now they are killing everyone who is against them. Thus, they are also abusing other. They are a serious threat to national security.

COBRA commandos are taking part in This? They are the anti naxellite force...

Yes they are... I'm in process to get the details of Paramilitary forces involved in this action.

 

[amarnath]

Yes they are... I'm in process to get the details of Paramilitary forces involved in this action.

Is it a live news buddy? or is it old, Iam in train, so no TV to check...

 

[PeacefulIndian]

"The purpose of this operation is not to engage in gun-battles but to re-assert the authority of civil-administration in areas dominated by the Maoists," Mr Chidambaram said on Friday.

This is the best part. We don't want IDPs here.

 

[Novice09]

Is it a live news buddy? or is it old, Iam in train, so no TV to check...

11:06 GMT, Friday, 22 January 2010

 

[amarnath]

11:06 GMT, Friday, 22 January 2010

Coool, Thats great.... Thanx friend

 

[Imran Khan]

killing terarrsts is ok but not civils .hope this opration will push back maos

 

[Iggy]

There are thugs and criminals infiltrated in to that organization..They are the one who is killing people..The only thing good about this organisation is that the government is forced to look up on backward places and bring devalopment there..

 

[idune]

India Maoist rebels kill 22 troops in West Bengal

By Subir Bhaumik
BBC News, Calcutta

There has been a surge in Maoist violence in recent months
At least 22 troops were killed when armed Maoists attacked a camp of the paramilitary forces in India's West Bengal state, officials said.

Nearly 50 rebels on motorcycles encircled the camp of the Eastern Frontier Rifles (ERF) at Silda village on Monday and started firing on it.

More fighters joined the assault on foot, firing from automatic weapons.

More than 6,000 people have died during the rebels' 20-year fight for communist rule in many Indian states.

The Indian government recently began a major offensive against the rebels in several states.

Indian Prime minister Manmohan Singh has described the Maoist insurgency as India's "greatest internal security challenge".

The rebels now have a presence in 223 of India's 600-odd districts.

Landmines

The camp was overrun by the Maoists after the troops put up brief initial resistance, district magistrate of West Midnapore district NS Nigam told the BBC.

"The Maoists then burnt down the camp and planted landmines on the entire length of the road leading to the camp. Reinforcements with night vision and anti-landmine vehicles reached the camp late at night," Mr Nigam said.

At least 22 bodies have been recovered from in and around the camp and some of them are badly charred, he said.



The government has launched a major offensive against the rebels
The seriously injured troops were being taken to the state capital, Calcutta, for treatment. Officials said at least 12 soldiers were still missing.

It took four hours for reinforcements to reached Silda as there were landmines planted on the entire stretch of the road.

Police officials leading the reinforcements that reached Silda late at night said many of the paramilitary troops were shot dead by the rebels as they tried to escape the fire.

West Bengal's police chief Bhupinder Singh said there were nearly 50 ERF troops in the camp when the attack took place.

The Maoists pulled out of Silda after looting a huge amount of weapons from the camp's armoury.

Chief of the rebels' military wing, Koteswara Rao - alias Kishenji - claimed responsibility for the attack.

He said this attack was the beginning of "Operation Peace Hunt", the Maoist answer to the government "Operation Green Hunt" launched against the Maoists recently.

"We are looking for peace but we are forced to fight and kill the poor troops of the government forces. We will mourn the death of those killed but the government is responsible for their death," Kishenji told the BBC by phone from an undisclosed location.

The Maoist leader warned of more such attacks unless Operation Green Hunt was stopped.

Earlier this month Home Minister P Chidambaram held a meeting of four Maoist-affected states - West Bengal, Jharkhand, Bihar and Orissa - in Calcutta.

He threatened to intensify Operation Green Hunt if the rebels did not start talks by abjuring violence.

The Maoists said they would agree to talks if four of their senior leaders now in jail were released and Operation Green Hunt was halted.

The government has not responded to that conditional overture.

BBC News - India Maoist rebels kill 22 troops in West Bengal

 

[Spring Onion]

Maoist rebels kill 24 police in eastern India

CALCUTTA: Maoist rebels detonated land mines and set a security outpost ablaze in eastern India, killing at least 24 policemen in the worst-ever attack on police in the restive area.

An additional seven officers were wounded in the brazen assault Monday by more than 100 communist fighters, who also stole weapons from the security post in Shilda village of West Bengal state, said district magistrate N.S. Nigam.

''Never before the police here have suffered so many losses in one attack,'' Surajit Kar Purkayastha, a police inspector-general, told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

Shilda is about 105 miles (170 kilometers) southwest of state capital, Calcutta. A total of 51 police officers were in the camp at the time of the attack, the Press Trust of India news agency said.

Nigam said the camp was close to a bustling market, and the rebels struck when a large number of people were shopping in the area.

Kishenji, a top Maoist leader in the area, claimed responsibility for the attack in a call to a local television station. He said it was in retaliation for a recent security crackdown against the rebels.

Police reinforcements scoured the area Tuesday for the assailants who fled after the assault, Nigam said.—AP