Naxalites - threat of lawlessness and terror

Naxalite terror in Jharkhand temples

The Statesman, Kolkata

RANCHI, June 1. — After having control over schools, colleges and other public places in Jharkhand, the Naxalite outfits have now laid siege to the temples to use them as platforms to carry out their terror acts. Sources said that the CPI(Maoists) activists have shifted their attention to the NH 33 (Ranchi-Jamshedpur-Kolkata) and carried out a massive postering in temples in Chandil-Chowka-Bundu area to collect “revenue” from the businessmen and general public. On 30 May, the Naxalites spread posters in Khunti-Hari temple near Chowka Chowk, ordering businessmen and rich farmers to pay tax to the outfit with a warning that whoever fails to comply with their order, would have to pay heavily. The tax should be paid to the cadres dressed in uniforms and armed with light machines guns and assault rifles. — SNS

Naxalites chip in where state doesn’t give a damn

Manoj Chaurasia in Patna
The statesman, Kolkata

June 17. — Given their four-decade-long presence in a poverty-stricken state like Bihar, yet to get rid of its caste-based and communally-oriented politics, Naxalites appear to have learnt very well the art of exploiting mass sentiments. Their task has been made easy by the failure of the government machinery to deliver the goods regardless of who’s in power. Taking full advantage of the official failure to come to the rescue of the people suffering the state’s worst hot spell in 80 years, the Naxalites are now making their presence felt doing what the government cannot.

The Communist Party of India-Maoist has initiated efforts aimed at providing irrigation facilities to the poor farmers of Immamganj, Dumaria, Kothi and Barachatti in Bihar’s Gaya district. The extremists are constructing a huge dam near Khajura village in Dumaria block by connecting two hills. They are planning two big canals for the water to be taken out of it. The work on the dam is on, with the administration looking on, and the project is being funded by levying survival taxes upon the rich. A report from Gaya said extremists were working on a dam at Tata Bara in Kothi besides building two more in Barachatti. All these initiatives have been warmly welcomed by the people, who recall how Naxalites once saved Gaya’s poor peasants from the terror of the dola system. When the state administration failed to check crime in these areas, Naxalites meted out rough justice, detaining some 24 criminals whom the police had failed to arrest and punishing them in their “courts” organised in the Konch-Tekari region early in 2000. Those accused of rape and murder were hacked to death. Petty offenders had their ears or noses chopped off. That brought the crime graph down, whilst raising an important question about who was ruling Bihar. The debate, truth to tell, continues.

"The Naxalites, also sometimes called the Naxals, is a loose term used to define groups waging a violent struggle on behalf of landless labourers and tribal people against landlords and others. The Naxalites say they are fighting oppression and exploitation to create a classless society. Their opponents say the Naxalites are terrorists oppressing people in the name of a class war."

http://www.rediff.com/news/2003/oct/02spec.htm

“Different Naxal groups now control 19 per cent of India ’s forests over an area two-and-a-half times the size of Bangladesh , reveals a study”, read a ‘special’ lead story captioned “Naxals in control of 7000 villages”, in the Deccan Chronicle on June 11, 2005.

http://www.saag.org/%5Cpapers15%5Cpaper1415.html

"In a place called Nakshalvadi in West Bengal an Adivasi youth named Wimal Kesan, having obtained a judicial order, went to plough his land on 2 March 1967. The local land lords attacked him through their goons. Through this erupted a struggle of "Nakshalvadi" and Adivasis started capturing back their lands. A Police Sub-inspector was killed by an Adivasi after two months in a riot, that started. Riot become stronger and 9 Adivasis were killed. Echo of this incident spread throughout the country and the end of this riot came forward as revolution "Nakshalvadi movement". The guns of Nakshalvadi directed against exploitation and in the name of social development pointed towards the landlords now changed and directed towards bureaucrats and thus spread of Naxalite movement has taken place within Adivasi areas of Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh and districts of Bhandara, Gadchiroli, Chandrapur, Nanded and Thane of Maharashtra.

The movement thrust upon the Adivasi At the basis of Naxalite movement there is a violence and an unconstitutional movement which denies democracy. The illiterate Adivasi who is cursed by the established system of exploitation now wishes liberation. He wants rights of self determination, self Government, self autonomy. He is ready to struggle for that and is getting prepared to throw away the burden of slavery imposed on him. The established higher caste intellectual Charu Mujumdar got the idea that Adivasi struggle is going to start against their system. Therefore, Naxalite movement originated from the clever brain of higher caste people like Charu Mujumdar. But on the contrary this movement has been used as a weapon against the Adivasi. As a result, Adivasi struggle is being termed as Naxalite and this horrible objective leads to blunt to sharpness of their movement against the system. It is necessary that Adivasi should understand these tactics.

http://www.dalitstan.org/books/patana/patana5.html

13 States meet on ‘misguided Naxalites’

The Deccan Chronicle

Hyderabad, June 17: The Chief Ministers of 13 Naxal-infested States will form a standing committee to devise a co-ordinated strategy to fight Left-wing extremism.Union home minister Shivraj Patil, will be the chairperson of the committee.

Joint task force operations will be conducted by affected states to prevent movement of extremists from one State to another. Police from one Naxal-infested State may be allowed to enter another state without prior permission.

The chief secretaries and police chiefs of the Naxal-hit States met in the city on Friday to discuss the issue. The meeting was presided over by Union home secretary V.K. Duggal. Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy, participated in the inaugural function.

The meeting separated the Naxal-infested States into two categories based on the scale of violence. The States where the Naxal movement is active and violent are Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Bihar, Orissa and Maharashtra.

West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Uttaranchal, Kerala, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh have been classified as “states with sporadic violence.” Mr Duggal told mediapersons that none of the states suggested a nation-wide ban on Naxals as they saw the phenomenon more as a socio-economic problem rather than a law and order problem.

“A common model cannot be evolved for the entire country as the problem differs from State to State,” he said. The meeting discussed the socio-economic steps taken up by various states and the Centre to develop areas where Naxalism had sprouted. “We would like to treat Naxals as a misguided lot”, he said. Naxal violence had come down considerably in the the past one year.

There were only 768 violent incidents in 2004-2005 as against 884 incidents in 2003-2004. Mr Duggal pointed out that State governments might utilise the army’s expertise in jungle warfare to train their police personnel involved in combing operations.

At present, 24 battalions of central forces consisting of 24,000 personnel are fighting Naxals in the country. Andhra Pradesh, which has four battalions at present, will get one more.

7 killed in Naxal violence

Amarnath Tewary/ Patna
The Pioneer, Delhi

In an unprecedented broad daylight Naxal violence, seven people were killed on Thursday at Madhuban block in Motihari district of East Chamaparan.

According to reports reaching the headquarters, the MCC extremists in a major afternoon swoop down, perhaps in a first of its kind operation raided the Madhuban block office, Madhuban police station, Circle Officer office, State Bank and Central Bank branches and looted money and arms. The extremists also fired at RJD leader and MP Sitaram Singhs's house and his petrol pump.

In the two hour long Naxal operation, two constables Nazir Hussain Khan and Roop Narayan Singh, the bank guard along with four of the Naxalites have been killed.

According to unconfirmed reports, a villager has lost his life in the gun battle between the police and the extremists.

Six rifles and two guns have been looted by the extremists from the Madhuban police station, reports said.

Villagers fight Maoists, kill 3

IANS / Raipur
Pioneer, Delhi

At least 10 people have been killed as villagers in Chhattisgarh's Bastar region have turned against Maoist guerrillas, accusing them of blocking development work.

According to officials, angry villagers killed three guerrillas of the Communist Party of India-Maoist in the past week. The rebels in turn killed seven villagers.

The villagers have reportedly accused the guerrillas of committing acts that have pushed the poor to the verge of starvation.

The unprecedented development has no doubt pleased the state administration. It is the first such showdown between the Maoists and villagers, who are otherwise considered the backbone of the Maoist movement.

"It is surprising and pleasant that villagers have realised that development activity suffers heavily in rural belts because of Maoist ultras," Home Minister Ramvichar Netam said.

"We completely back the people and are ready to provide all support to them to weed out the Maoist menace," he added.

He said the police had recovered seven bodies of villagers from forest areas of Dantewada district. He said all of them were killed by Maoists for revolting against the guerrillas.

Mr Netam added: "The police have stepped up search operation in areas currently witnessing fights between villagers and Maoists.

"We want to see such fights in all the nine districts where Maoists enjoy local support," he said.

Maoists push police to a revolt-like situation

Saugar Sengupta/ Bankura/ Kolkata

This is a small example of what one act of planned 'Red terror' can do to a firmly institutionalized 'yellow terror' - refer to the men in khaki - so to say. The police top brass in three districts of Bankura, Purulia and West Midnapore are grappling with over 250 applications for transfer to safer and saner areas, a rudimentary report suggests.

Add to this those scores of leave applications pending with the district authorities. And the number of such "mercy petitions" could even be higher if one takes into account the partly affected districts of Hooghly and East Midnapore. Then there are reports that the ultras have just begun to infiltrate Burdwan and Birbhum districts.

"Thank God there is no strong leader here or there would have been a revolt in the police force," shouts a subaltern officer in Bankura. "It is easy for Buddhababu (the Chief Minister) to talk big from his air-conditioned enclosure in the Writers' but it is difficult to sacrifice your life like sitting ducks," he moans.

"After all we also have our children to take care of. If the Chief Minister has one daughter about whom he is so sensitive I have two and a son. All are minors and who will look after them if something happens to me?" the ASI's voice almost breaks in tears. For the records, 19 policemen and 12 CPI-M cadres have been killed in the zone over the last two years.

Sitting ducks indeed, even senior officials in Kolkata concede as the State police are almost forced to defend themselves against terrorists' AK 47s with the 1947-made guns.

A gross disparity of fire power is perhaps the ostensible reason why the cops at a police camp barely 20 yards away from the spot at Majgeria, where Maoist rebels gunned down two CPI-M leaders on Saturday night, refused to chase the militants who came and went on foot or bicycles. The camp officials not even dared to carry on a post attack search and left it all for the back up force from the Thana to do.

Involvement of some local girls in the murders: two at Majgeria and one at Dulukdihi in neighbouring Purulia district seems to have done no good to the police confidence, a senior CID official said.

According to reports three local girls: handpicked by the PWG and trained in Andhra Pradesh Khepi who led the attack at Majgeria and Jamuna and Suchita who killed a CPI-M leader at Dulukdihi are cold-blooded killers and have excellent organizational skills. The women are friendly to many a domestic help in the district towns of Purulia and Bankura and even neighbouring Jharkhand from where they manage their intelligence inputs, officials suggested.

The district administrations in Bankura, Purulia and West Midnapore have seen a number of protests from the policemen in the recent times for upgrading their weaponry. But all of them have gone in vain, an inspector back from the 'field' complains.

The most remarkable amongst the protests were the one led by the wives of policemen in West Midnapore district who gheraoed SP SC Meena to either provide the cops with state-of-art weaponry.

"We are helpless. The Government wouldn't simply listen. Though there have been some replacements the rate of modernisation is too slow," says an IPS officer.

Comrades invited to open debate by Maoists
- By Sanjoy Bhadra , Asian Age

Kolkata, July 19: The CPI(M) may be averse to discussion with “violence-perpetrating” Maoists but the latter has invited Communists for an “open debate.”
However, Maoists have set a few pre-conditions. The debate must be in media glare with people participation and without the presence of police. That done “people will understand the difference between revolutionary Marxism-Leninism and CPI(M) advocated Marxism-Leninism.”

In a press communiqué to this correspondent, Kanchan, a member of the West Bengal CPI(Maoists) state committee issued the statement.
Critical about CPI(M) state secretary Anil Biswas’ call to “advocate opinions in a democratic way,” Kanchan claimed: “Our movement started with demands for the peasants at Purulia, Bankura and Medinipur. When the scope enlarged to resisting corruption in panchayats, the fight attracted the CPI(M)’s ire. Our cadres were arrested and some of our political posters were ripped by the police.”

Stating in clear terms that Maoists do not uphold killing of CPI(M) leaders and cadres, the statement noted that the fight is against “state-sponsored repression — be it CPI(M), Congress, Trinamul Congress or the BJP — at the helm of affairs.”

Further, the release urges policemen to refrain from thwarting their movement. It advised the men in uniform, to instead, “revolt against bureaucrats and corrupt police officers.”

Claiming that “CPI(M) leader Raghunath Murmu, Mahendra Mahato and Bablu Mudi were gunned down for being police informers,” the statement reiterated the plans to uphold rights of the rural sections. “Under our leadership, tribals will punish corrupt politicians and mafia and anybody who disturbs the ecological balance in our settlements.”

The leader’s statement was in full know of popularly-attacked anomalies within the Leftist ideology. “Their interpretation of Marxist theory harps on attaining Capitalism to turn tables in favour of Democratic Revolution. Is this the reason why the comrades are seeking help from World Bank and Asian Development Bank?”

Voicing Maoist discontent, the release came down hard on the ruling government’s pre-occupation with building shopping malls and housing project. “The poor are left poorer. In rural Bengal, educational institutions and panchayat offices are used as police camps. Roads are built to help policemen swoop down on groups seeking basic rights to a civilised life...”

Naxalites - threat of lawlessness and terror - to help India's poor