News from the Indian Revolution (3)

[TheGodlessUtopian]

The old thread reached 500+ posts so in accordance with RevLeft's rules I have started this new thread to exclusively chronicle news, reports and updates from the Indian Revolution (no "op eds"/opinion pieces). For the previous thread look here.
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BSF helicopter fired at by Naxals, second incident this year
A BSF helicopter, involved in lifting commandos conducting anti-Naxal operations, was today fired at by Naxalites in the jungles of south Bastar in Chhattisgarh, officials said. The Mi-17 helicopter suffered bullet shots in the cockpit area but landed safely with the last passenger load of ‘Greyhound’ commandos in Andhra Pradesh’s Bhadrachalam in Khammam district, senior officials involved in the operation said. The helicopter was pressed for troop evacuation after the commando squad conducted an anti-Maoist operation in Sukma district of Chhattisgarh yesterday where ten Naxals were killed.
The incident of opening fire at the chopper took place in Puwarti village under Jagargunda police station area of the district in south Bastar during the evening hours. During the firing, ten commandos of Andhra Pradesh police force were evacuated, they said. Security forces had also thrown a ring around the helipad but still the Maoists attempt to hit the chopper succeeded, they said, adding that a squad of CRPF personnel fanned in the nearby areas to look for Naxal cadres.
Two IAF Mi-17 choppers were also part of the same operation today but they were safe during their entire sortie where they transported 30 Greyhounds personnel from Chhattisgarh to Andhra Pradesh. This is the second incident of Naxalites firing on security forces’ helicopters after an IAF chopper was hit in January in the same district. A joint squad of Andhra Pradesh’s Greyhounds, CRPF and state police had conducted an operation in the area yesterday.
http://newindianexpress.com/nation/B...cle1549540.ece


Five women among nine Maoists killed in Chhattisgarh gunbattle
In one of the biggest operations in Dandakaranya region in recent years, security forces claimed to have killed nine Maoists, including five women, in Sukma district of Chhattisgarh on Tuesday morning. “The incident took place at Puvarti under Jagargunda police station area at around 8 am, when a joint team of Andhra Greyhounds, 217 Battalion of CRPF and Chhattisgarh police had an encounter with the Maoists,” said Bastar IG Himanshu Gupta.
Among those killed was North Telangana special zonal committee member Marri Ravi alias Sudhakar, who carried a reward of Rs 20 lakh. “Nine bodies have been recovered, out of which seven have been identified. Besides Sudhakar, his gunmen Ajay was also killed,” said the IG.
The other Maoists who have been identifed are divisional committee member Pushpaka (Karimnagar), Sabitha (Warangal), Arelli Venkat alias Kiran (Karimnagar), Maddi Seetha alias Navatha (Mangapait), Jagan Raju alias Durgam Raju (Warangal). All of them operated in Andhra Pradesh. Security forces also claimed to have recovered 11 weapons, including 2 INSAS and 4 SLRs.
Sources said the entire operation was led by the anti-Naxal force Greyhounds, based on intelligence input that senior Maoist leader Ramanna and other cadres were in Sukma’s Puwarti area, over 600 km south of capital Raipur, for a “tactical counter offensive campaign” meeting. Ramanna is believed to be behind the 2010 Dantewada attack that left 76 CRPF personnel dead. It was his “military company” that came under attack today.
“This is one of the most important wings of the Maoists as they are well-armed and trained in jungle warfare. Their prime job is to provide security to the top ten leaders,” said an official. Officials alleged that the Maoists used children from the nearby villages as “human shields”. “They sat on tractors and surrounded themselves with children before fleeing the site,” said an official. Sources said there was an increasing trend among the Maoists to recruit more women. Senior Home ministry officials said women constituted at least 40-50 per cent of the new cadres inducted by the Maoists recently.
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/fi...ttle/1103683/0


Encounter in Chhattisgarh: State borders sealed
KORAPUT: Fearing a possible influx of Maoists into Odisha following an encounter between Red rebels and a joint team of CRPF personnel and Greyhounds of Andhra Pradesh in bordering Chhattisgarh on Tuesday, security has been beefed up in Maoist-hit Malkangiri district. “Though the place of encounter is over 100 km from our border, but we can’t take chances and have strengthened our anti-Maoist operation along the border areas. Security personnel have been kept on high alert to avert a possible sneaking of ultras into the district,” said SP (Malkangiri) Akhileswar Singh.
While borders have been sealed, extra forces have been deployed at possible waterways, which could be used by the Left-wing extremists to enter the district. “Vehicles entering into the district are being frisked. Extra forces have also been deployed at strategic locations,” the SP said.
At least nine extremists were killed in the encounter between security personnel and the Red rebels belonging to south Bastar division committee of the outlawed CPI (Maoist) at Puvarthi village inside Kanchala forest in Chhattisgarh. Police said the exchange of fire lasted for one hour.
Two INSAS guns, two .303 guns, a carbine, an SBML gun, a pistol, an SLR, an AK 20 rifle and huge quantities of bullets, three cellphones, and Rs 19,000 cash among other Maoist belongings were recovered from the Maoist camp. While an exchange of fire had occurred between Maoists and security men at Tekguda forest under Kalimela police limits in the district recently, the rebels had murdered sarpanch of Kurmanur panchayat Bhagaban Kirsani earlier this month suspecting him to be a police informer.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/c...w/19588966.cms


CRPF to purchase high-end defence gear to take on Naxals
The CRPF is purchasing more than a dozen defence manufactured UAVs and a number of mine protected troop carriers to aid and guide ground patrols of the force conducting anti-Naxal operations. The country’s largest paramilitary, thick in action against the Maoists, has decided to make these big ticket purchases from indigenous defence establishments like the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and the Ordnance Factory Board (OFB).
The decision to purchase from indigenous defence establishments has been made with a view to fast-track the purchases and get an early delivery of these sophisticated machines as compared to the timeline of foreign vendors and global purchases. Sources said the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) will get almost 15 ‘Nishant’ Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and more than three dozen OFB Kolkata made counter-landmine vehicles which protect troops from hidden mines.
“Both the machines coming from the defence stable are aimed to get the troops a better operational preparedness in the Naxal terrain and also save our men from the deadly landmines planted clandestinely beneath the tracks in Naxal-hit areas,” a senior official said.
The CRPF, which has deployed close to 85,000 personnel for anti-Naxal operations, at present is flying UAVs in Maoist zones in order to give its foot soldiers an advanced view of the jungle terrain and indicate possible movement of armed Maoist cadres with the help of the ‘Netra’ mini-UAVs. The force now will use the bigger UAV ‘Nishant’ developed by the Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE) of the DRDO and used by the Indian Army.
The ‘Nishant’ can undertake day and night missions using advance payloads and has a command link and digital downlink. It is compact and easily deployable system and can undertake day and night battlefield reconnaissance, surveillance and target tracking.
The machine has an endurance capacity of four-and-a-half hours and it achieves maximum speed of 185km per hour. The OFB manufactured mine-protected troop carrier, the CRPF thinks, will give an enhanced security to its troops who have been killed in earlier variants after explosives as high as 80kgs was blasted beneath these mammoth armoured machines tossing the vehicle in air, killing and maiming many personnel out in the jungles.
The force is aiming to purchase close to 40 such landmine protected vehicles for its battalions in Naxal areas and the Kolkata based OFB has agreed to supply these machines which promise better ergonomics and enhanced resistance to IED and explosives blast under the hull or tyres of the machine. “The manufacturers wanted the CRPF to give a substantial order so that they can activate their production lines for these machines quickly.
This assurance has been already conveyed,” the official added. The latest UAVs, once inducted into the CRPF stable, will be based in a squadron formation in Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra and they will undertake sorties from multiple locations on a requirement basis, sources said.
http://newindianexpress.com/nation/C...cle1549284.ece


The CPI(Maoist), on the backfoot after prolonged operations in Saranda forest in Jharkhand’s West Singhbhum district, is planning to strengthen itself with tie-ups with insurgent groups in the Northeast.
A letter sent to 13 states, including Jharkhand, by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs on Maoist efforts to expand to new areas said that they planned to strengthen their Eastern Regional Bureau which was guiding the movement in all the states of the eastern region. “… The North-East is another region where the CPI (Maoist) is trying to spread its wings … with the objectives include strengthening the outfit’s Eastern Regional Bureau, procurement of arms/ammunition/communication equipment,” the six-page letter said.
It noted that the CPI-Maoist had developed close relationship with the Manipur-based People’s Liberation Army, which was not only in a position to procure weapons from foreign sources, but had also provided training to Maoist cadres. The NSCN (I/M) also appeared to have been used for training to the rebels, it said.
The letter, however, said it would not be easy for the Maoists to establish themselves in the the Northeast abounding in ethnicity based militias, but they could use their ‘theoretical support’ to ‘nationalities’ and to gain a foothold in the region and forge relationships with ethnic militant groups.
The Maoists presence was first noticed in Assam in 2006 with the ultras targeting the ‘existing political movements’, the letter said. It estimated that the banned Maoist outfit had around one hundred cadres, including 25 to 30 armed, in Assam and with Mahesh, a Central Committee member from the Rabha community appearing to be in charge. Quoting the Assam Police, the letter said 23 of the 79 police stations in Tinsukia, Dibrugarh, Sibsagar, Dhemaji and Lakhmipur districts in Assam were affected by Left-wing extremism with cadres extorting small tea gardens, cattle-rearing farms and individuals to sustain itself.
“… the Maoists have done some ground-work in the tea garden areas where a local Maoist leader, Aditya Borah, is at the forefront of efforts to recruit Adivasis in Dibrugarh and Tinsukia districts,” the letter said. Some recently arrested Adivasi Tiger Force militants revealed that they had close links with Borah and that Maoists from West Bengal were providing ideological training to Adivasi youth, the letter said.
http://www.dnaindia.com/india/182350...e-in-northeast


West Bengal,Odisha, Jharkhand to launch joint operation against Maoists
Jhargram, West Bengal: Security forces of West Bengal, Odisha and Jharkhand today decided to launch a joint operation against Maoists in their common border areas. Jhargram Superintendent of Police Bharati Ghosh said officers of various levels of the police, CRPF and CISF of the three states attended a meeting held in the SP’s office in Jahrgram.
It was decided at the meeting that a joint operation would be launched against the Maoists in the border areas, Ghosh said. However, she did not divulge the exact date of commencing of the operation. Jungle Mahal region in southern West Bengal comprising the forested areas of Purulia, West Midnapore (which included Jhargram police district) and Bankura district has borders with Odisha and Jharkhand and was a Maoist stronghold a couple of years ago.
Their activities slowed down after the Mamata Banerjee-led government came to power in May 2011 and CPI (Maoist) politburo member Kishanji was killed six months later. However, in recent months, there were indications that the red rebels were trying to regroup in Jungle Mahal.
http://www.firstpost.com/india/west-...ts-707632.html

Source: http://www.signalfire.org/?p=23998

[TheGodlessUtopian]

BSF ‘deserts’ commandos after Naxal operation
At least five of Andhra Pradesh’s Greyhounds commando team, which killed nine Maoists, were on Wednesday reportedly abandoned by a BSF helicopter in the rebel-infested Batiguda village in Khammam district. After the IAF sent two Mi-17 helicopters to Batiguda on the Chhattisgarh-Andhra Pradesh border and successfully airlifted 30 of the Greyhounds personnel, the BSF’s lone Mi-17 chopper was tasked to pick up the remaining 10 personnel. “But soon after the BSF helicopter landed and the commandos began to board it, heavily armed Maoists zeroed in on the location and opened fire,” officials from the security agencies said here.
Soon, the Mi-17 was hit by the Maoists’ bullets, two of which reportedly hit the cargo hold area too, prompting the pilots to take off midway through the evacuation process. “The BSF helicopter left behind at least five men and flew out. This happened in the afternoon hours of Wednesday. We have no further information on the fate of the five men,” the officials added. The five men were part of the 40-member commando team that killed nine Maoists, including five women, in an encounter in Chhattisgarh’s Sukma district on Tuesday.
On January 18, an IAF Mi-17 helicopter had come under a heavy Maoists ambush in a forest area in Chhattisgarh, where they had flown to evacuate CRPF personnel. The IAF crew, along with two Garud Commando Force personnel, left behind the injured policemen and the chopper in the forest and walked to a police station a few kilometres away. The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) had sought a report from the Ministry of Defence on the incident. Incidentally, the BSF is directly under the MHA’s administrative control.
http://newindianexpress.com/nation/B...cle1549940.ece

Chhattisgarh’s policy problems
It is not often that human rights activists and government observers appear on the same analytical platform. But when they do, it is worth pausing in the churlish dismissal of any criticism of rampant industrialization as anti-national sentiment. I have increasingly encountered such analyses from officials charged with internal security, administrators and police alike, in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa and West Bengal.
These states are well known for their heavy-handed application of both industrial and security policies. Such orientation enables business and politics to walk hand-in-glove. For the purpose of brevity, in this week’s column let’s pick Chhattisgarh, arguably the state with the most roiled political economy and security environment. Security analysts point to the rash of proposed and work-in-progress thermal power, iron and steel and coal-mining projects in this state, in particular such concentration in the three north-central districts of Raigarh, Janjgir-Champa and Korba.
Security concerns extend beyond the usual footprint of twisted land acquisition and shabby resettlement and rehabilitation issues. Indeed, such concerns project Korba and Raigarh as agriculturally among the most productive districts of Chhattisgarh. Security analyses also correctly highlight Janjgir-Champa and Raigarh as geographies for the Mahanadi river system which eventually drains into neighbouring Orissa. They speak of prime agricultural land being acquired for industry, leading to loss of livelihoods, and in other cases pollution affecting output in farms near industrial concentrations. Appropriation of water resources for industry to the detriment of agriculture is red-flagged.
As one report mentions: “Most of the available water from tributaries as well as from the Mahanadi river has been diverted to existing power/iron and steel plants. The under-construction plants are also dependent on water from this river basin.” Several security analysts speak of the fallout of diverting forest and agricultural land in the area for coal blocks, a matter of particular focus especially on account of the central government taking a decision to adopt such proposals for fast-track clearance. Then there is the downstream effect.
As one security analysis read, “Displacement from land and forest, decline in agricultural productivity and a polluted environment will lead to distress amongst the majority of the local population which till now has been unorganized. After the compensation amounts given to the local landowners have finished they will also become part of the discontented masses.” Besides the increasing volume of protests by social activists who generally step in to provide organization to such discontent, there is the additional factor of the Communist Party of India (Maoist).
The Maoists have what can be termed a foothold in Raigarh district, which shares an eastern border with Orissa, and in Jashpur, the adjacent district to its north that shares a border with Orissa and Jharkhand. Some insiders expect Maoists to begin leveraging local discontent for propaganda and recruitment. This is not idle talk. The CPI (Maoist) has for at least the past year worked diligently to secure a corridor that links its stronghold in southern Chhattisgarh with Jharkhand using a funnel that runs through western Orissa.
A part of this funnel, a personnel and material route, is also believed to contain an alternate sanctuary in Orissa for Maoist leadership—I have discussed these in detail in earlier columns. Under pressure in all theatres of their operation, Maoists are naturally looking for fresh grounds to sow and reap. The new industrial hubs of Chhattisgarh can provide that with their proximity to this Maoist pipeline.
Were that to happen, it is not impossible to imagine that businesses, both big and small, would be as inextricably linked to the Maoist political economy as they are in southern Chhattisgarh. Another report has this damning indictment: “Growing agrarian and social unrest is bound to provide an audience as well as a plank for the Maoist ideology… The state government is not prepared to meet the possible challenges.
Neither does it have the foresight or depth to see the future trends.” Some reports specifically name government officials thought to have benefited from the state’s industrial overdrive. It is not difficult to see where this is headed. Instead of fixing the ills of its own policies—industrial, land, and resettlement and rehabilitation, to name a few—the government of Chhattisgarh could well request the deployment of vast numbers of paramilitary forces in central Chhattisgarh.
As has happened in southern Chhattisgarh and elsewhere, a situation of resentment and violence will lead to security forces being deployed. This will be described as a necessary step to reclaim space for governance and peace—governance and peace that was deliberately weakened.
http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/1xgY...alization.html

Varavara Rao questions Maoist ‘encounter story’
Were the nine Maoists really slain in an exchange of fire with a joint force of Greyhounds, Police and CRPF at Puvarthi forest area in Bijapur district, Chhattisgarh? Revolutionary Writers’ Association leader Varavara Rao on Wednesday alleged that the police were lying. He felt it was more than likely that the deaths were the result of a covert police operation and suspected that Maoist Khammam, Karimnagar and Warangal region secretary V Sudhakar was in police custody, notwithstanding the police claim that he was among the dead.
Family members of Sudhakar too made it clear his body was not among the dead. Varavara Rao suspected the police were making false claims to torture Sudhakar. He demanded that besides Sudhakar, Maoists Rajireddy, Hari Bhushan and Malla Reddy, who were in the custody of Pamedu police, be produced in court. Varavara Rao visited Bhadrachalam and paid tributes to the slain Maoists and was furious with the Khammam police for not allowing family members to see the mortal remains of the dead Maoists.
The Khammam police had disregarded the direction of the AP High Court and the Human Rights Commission to preserve and hand over the bodies to the family members, he alleged. Varavara Rao said all the nine Maoists were SCs and STs who had spent their lives in the struggle to protect valuable minerals of their forest areas.
He said the Maoists had opposed the handing over of forest wealth to multi-national companies and demanded that the government conduct post-mortem of all the bodies in Bhadrachalam and hand them over to the family members. He said home minister Sabitha Indra Reddy, DGP V Dinesh Reddy and Intelligence DG K Mahender Reddy had turned down his appeal to conduct post-mortem in Bhadrachalam and handover bodies to the families.
http://newindianexpress.com/states/a...cle1549984.ece

Slain Maoists’ bodies shifted to Chhattisgarh amid protests
Tension prevailed at the Government area hospital in Bhadrachalam on Wednesday when relatives of the nine Maoists, who were killed in an encounter with police in Chhattisgarh on Tuesday, staged a demonstration opposing shifting of the bodies to Chhattisgarh.
Civil liberties activists protest
Amid protests by civil liberties activists, who charged the police with killing the nine Maoists in a “covert operation”, the bodies were shifted to Sukma district by road under the supervision of the Chhattisgarh police in the afternoon.
The situation turned tense when family members of some of the slain Maoists insisted that they be allowed to see the bodies and take them home. They wanted post-mortem performed at the local area hospital itself in line with High Court guidelines. Citing jurisdictional limits, the local police maintained that the post-mortem would be conducted in Chhattisgarh and the bodies would be handed over to them thereafter.
In an unexpected development, the father and other family members of the Khammam-Karimnagar-Warangal divisional secretary, Sudhakar, did not identify the bullet-riddled body claimed by the police as that of the senior Maoist leader. However, police officials reiterated that Sudhakar was among those killed in the encounter. Covert operation alleged Talking to media persons, revolutionary writer Varavara Rao accused the police of gunning down the Maoists in a covert operation when the latter fell unconscious after consuming food laced with “poison.”
However, the Officer on Special Duty, Kothagudem, T. Srinivasa Rao, refuted the charges. “Sudhakar was among those killed in the encounter. This has been corroborated by some former naxaltes of the region,” he asserted. Meanwhile, Mulugu MLA Seetakka expressed anguish over the manner in which the bodies were dumped in the mortuary. “All the slain Maoists hailed from weaker sections, mostly from my constituency in Warangal district. It is distressing that the family members are not being allowed to see the bodies,” she added.
http://www.thehindu.com/news/nationa...cle4627866.ece

Source: http://www.signalfire.org/?p=24013

[Sentinel]

Stickied.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Naxals ask voters to boycott polls
Several naxal pamphlets urging voters to boycott the May 5 polls were found in Kigga on Thursday morning. Whether this is a Naxal activity or handwork of a few miscreants is yet to be ascertained. Anti-naxal personnel are present at Kigga and security is already tightened due to the car festival of rain god Rishyasringa . Police officials also visited the spot and took stock of the situation.
http://newindianexpress.com/states/k...cle1551814.ece


‘Greyhounds’ jawan killed in gunfight with Naxals
Raipur: A jawan of Andhra Pradesh’s anti- Naxal force ‘Greyhounds’ was killed in an encounter with Maoists in the jungles of Chhattisgarh’s Bjiapur district on Thursday, a senior police official said. The jawan, whose identity was not disclosed, was part of the commando squad which on Tuesday conducted an anti- Maoist operation in Chhattisgarh’s Sukma district, where ten Naxals were gunned down.
“We have got information about the death of a Greyhounds force jawan in forests under Pamed police station area of Bjiapur district in an exchange of gun fire with ultras,” Director General of Police (DGP) Ramniwas told PTI. Security forces were rushed to the spot to recover the body, he said.
According to a senior official of Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), around five jawans of the squad were left behind in the jungles after the operation. When they were coming out of the forest, ultras opened fire on the jawans, who retaliated. In the ensuing gunbattle, one of the personnel was killed, while the others came out safely, the DGP said. Personnel of Greyhounds, CRPF and Chhattisgarh Police launched a joint offensive against rebels on April 16 in Puarti village of Sukma district and killed 10 ultras. PTI
http://zeenews.india.com/news/chhatt...ls_843102.html


Two Maoists arrested in Kolkata
Two Maoists were arrested from the city and arms, ammunition and some documents recovered from them police said Friday. Sabyasachi Goswami, and Zakir Hussain, both members of the banned Communist Party of India-Maoist were arrested Thursday evening from the city’s Jadavpur area by the special task force of the state police.
http://newindianexpress.com/nation/T...cle1552485.ece


HC denies bail to alleged naxal
Bombay High Court has rejected the bail application of Angela Sontakke, an alleged naxal. Sontakke (42) was arrested by the Maharashtra Anti- Terrorism Squad in April 2011 along with six others for their alleged association with the banned outfit Communist Party of India (Maoist).
The sessions court in May last year had rejected the bail applications of all the seven accused, following which they approached the High Court. “The other six accused were granted bail by High Court earlier, but Sontakke’s bail was rejected last week,” her lawyer Sharmila Kaushik said. Justice S C Dharmadhikari, while rejecting the bail plea, observed that prima facie a case was made out against Sontakke.
Others who were arrested with her are Sushma Ramteke, Jyoti Chorge, Nandini Bhagat (22), Auradha Sonule (23), Siddharth Bhosale (24) and Dhavala Dhengale (36). According to the chargesheet filed by ATS, all the accused, booked under several sections of the Indian Penal Code and Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, had “organised several camps for imparting training in terrorism”. They are also accused of `acquiring and holding property’ obtained with funds given by terrorist organisation.
http://www.deccanherald.com/content/...ged-naxal.html

Source: http://www.signalfire.org/?p=24029

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Plea in Chhattisgarh HC alleges nexus between Naxals, cops
Alleging strong nexus between top Maoists and senior police officers, an “undercover policeman” filed a petition in Bilaspur High Court on Thursday, seeking protection as the state police wanted to eliminate him. The tribal youth, who has been working in Surguja region of north Chhattisgarh since 2002, said he was employed to infiltrate the Maoist camp and he successfully helped the police in several operations.
But as he learnt about the links of top policemen with the Maoists, he informed the state home ministry.When he did not receive any reply, he wrote to then Union Home Minister P Chidambaram on July 28, 2010, detailing the nexus. Soon after, the state police approached him and asked him to keep quiet, the youth said in his petition.
Considering the sensitivity of the case, the High Court accepted his counsel Satish Verma’s plea and held the proceedings in-camera — press and outsiders were not allowed. The court asked the state government to provide him immediate security and file a reply within three weeks by an officer not less than IG rank.
The petitioner, requesting anonymity, said that as he approached the Central government, state police officers began threatening him and even the Maoists attacked him on a few occasions. “The case is in honourable court. It is not appropriate for me to respond, we will submit our response before the court,” DGP Ramniwas said, when approached for his reaction.
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/Plea-in-Chhattisgarh-HC-alleges-nexus-between-Naxals–cops/1105022/


Support pours in for arrested ‘Naxal’ duo
MUMBAI: Letters of support have been pouring in from all over the world, including countries like France, Canada, UK, Thailand, Portugal and Germany, for the jailed couple who allegedly have Naxal links. The letters, written in English and French, request the Arthur Road and the Byculla women’s prison authorities to not torture the two inmates and provide medical aid to the woman, who is six months pregnant.
Till date, authorities have received over 30 letters via fax and over 50 from across the world. Home minister R R Patil too has received similar letters. One of the letters, addressed to Vinod Lokhande, inspector general (prisons), stated, “I am writing to you out of concern for theatre activists Sheetal Sathe and Sachin Mali, who were arrested on April 2 on various charges, including criminal conspiracy and being part of a banned outfit.
Their lives are at risk of torture or other ill-treatment.” Fed up with the continuous letters, jail officials have switched off the fax machine. “We don’t have so much stationery. All letters are almost same, only the senders are different. The fax letters do not show the location or country code, from where they are being sent,” said a source.
After Sathe and Mali’s surrender under the stringent Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), activists Prakash Ambedkar, Prakash Reddy, Anand Patwardhan and others said the two are members of Kabir Kala Manch, a cultural outfit.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/c...w/19656215.cms


With police help, banned Naxal group takes on Maoists in Jharkhand
As coming-of-age rituals go, the Tritiya Sammelan Prastuti Committee (TSPC) couldn’t have planned it better. Acting on intelligence by its cadre, it moved in on a group of Maoists in Chatra district’s Lawalong Tola on the intervening night of March 27-28, killing 10. Among the dead was Lalesh Yadav, secretary of the Bihar-Jharkhand-North Chhattisgarh Special Area Committee, and his closest subordinates, thus leaving a vacuum at the heart of an organisation that has long challenged the police forces of Jharkhand and Bihar.
In the wake of that episode, the Jharkhand Police has denied allegations that the TSPC works with their tacit support. That’s contrary to the evidence on the ground, which indicates that not only does the TSPC, or TPC as it is commonly known, work alongside government forces but that the special branch of the Jharkhand Police was instrumental in its creation back in 2002.
This support has enabled the Jharkhand-government banned organisation to remain overground in Chatra’s Lawalong block, where it is headquartered. It has won panchayat elections unopposed, established itself as a parallel power centre, and driven the Maoists out.
In Lawalong, only one man’s writ counts. Officially, he is called Gopal Singh Bhokta. He is the up-pramukh (deputy president) of the Lawalong panchayat and owns the only institution in the block that teaches up to Class XII: the GSB Inter College, named after him. Villagers such as Baijnath Sahu, the vice-chairperson of the block, say he is much more to them: “Something like a Lok Sabha member or above.”
Only no one knows Bhokta as Bhokta. To both the state police and Lawalong, he is Brajesh Ganjhu or “Sardarji”, the supreme commander of the TSPC. The non-CPI (Maoist) groups, including the TSPC, accounted for 56 per cent of Jharkhand’s left-wing extremist violence in 2012—the same year that the state topped the country in Maoist incidents (479) as well as deaths (162). Brajesh is not the only elected representative with a TSPC background.
Mamta Devi, the president of the zila parishad (district council) who was elected unopposed from Lawalong, is the wife of TSPC ‘zonal commander’ Laxman Ganjhu alias Kohram. Neelam Devi, the chairperson of the block, is the wife of sub-zonal commander Ravinder Ganjhu alias Aakraman. Aakraman is believed to have led the latter half of the March 27-28 encounter, during which senior Maoist leaders were killed. All eight of the panchayat presidents, their deputies and panchayat samiti members in the Lawalong block were elected unopposed in the November-December 2010 panchayat elections.
Same was the case with the lone block representative to the zila parishad and almost all the 80 ward members for the block’s 103 villages. It’s a nearly 100-strong community of the “nirvirodhi (unopposed)”. The TSPC has long been accused of being close to the administration and the state police. At Lawalong, the TSPC is the administration. *** The seeds of the TSPC’s birth were sown in early 2002 in an act of “tactical” kindness. The police were at the time hot on the heels of Brajesh, then a ‘platoon commander’ with the Maoist Communist Centre (MCC).
“He was a terror. Along with Mukesh, another ‘platoon commander’, he seized the most police weapons,” says a source. The police got a breakthrough when they came to know that Brajesh’s father was severely ill. “We took the father to hospital and made sure he got treatment,” says a policeman, aware of the developments. According to him, that proved the turning point. “Brajesh phoned us, crying. He kept repeating that he did not know that policemen could be humane. We used the opportunity to get closer to him. Eventually, we convinced him to leave the organisation,” the police official says.
One of the clinching arguments was that the people of the area were not benefitting from the levy being collected by the MCC, and that the money was all being transferred to West Bengal, where the outfit had its origins. Brajesh left, provoking the MCC into a backlash. “The Maoists held a jan adalat and decided that Brajesh had to die. The villagers came to his help, and the MCC started attacking the people of his community—the Scheduled Caste Ganjhus.”
Around the end of 2002, Brajesh came to the police for help. “We told him we would help him if he does something in return,” says the policeman. According to the official, “We also arranged for Brajesh to meet a senior officer. He already had guns; we gave him another Rs 80,000. Some officers arranged for rifles. Thus the TSPC was born, with 140 of his boys switching over from the MCC to Brajesh’s side.”
Another version says the TSPC was formed in 2004-2005, but it is likely they became active in early 2005. They now have an estimated cadre strength of 450-750. Jharkhand’s Director General of Police Rajiv Kumar denies any TSPC-police links, saying they treat them “like any other extremist group”. “They are a splinter group of the CPI (Maoist), which has been involved in internecine clashes.
Without them, the Maoists just accounted for 44 per cent of Naxal violence last year,” he says. Police sources believe the outfit derived its name from the third (“tritiya”) preparatory meeting for the merger of the MCC and People’s War, which was marred by differences between the Yadav and Ganjhu factions of the MCC. Brajesh, described as being close to 40 years, is now the TSPC’s supreme leader in charge of military affairs, while Mukesh takes care of finances.
Starting from Chatra, the TSPC soon spread to neighbouring Palamu and Latehar districts almost as the frontline of government forces, evicting the Maoists or forcing them to defect. In the words of a policeman, if the TSPC cadres encounter a Maoist team and are outnumbered, they call the police for help; the same works the other way round, with the TSPC helping CRPF-police parties in trouble. TSPC commanders also pick up Maoists and hand them over to the police. “We constantly keep each other aware of our positions to avoid cross-firing,” says a policeman, among the many in touch with the TSPC’s top leadership. “For us, the choice is quite straightforward.
The Maoists are anti-national; they plan to overthrow the Indian state,” adds a policeman. “The TSPC then is the lesser evil.” The TSPC also gains from this arrangement. Take the encounter in Lakramanda that killed the 10 senior Maoist leaders. The police claim to have recovered only an AK-56, two .303s and three .315 rifles. A police source admitted that the TPSC has very sophisticated weapons already, and may have been allowed to retain the weapons seized from the Maoists. Along with killing Maoist leaders, the TSPC had also kidnapped 25 People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army cadre, though it released them later. Some of the 25 have been arrested by the forces of Bihar and Jharkhand since then on pending cases. A police source says they are likely to prepare FIRs without any names in the case.
A look at police arrests is also revealing. In 2012, the Chatra police made nine major CPI (Maoist) arrests and three TSPC ones. The Palamu police made six major CPI (Maoist) and three People’s Liberation Front of India arrests in 2012, but no TSPC ones. Latehar has seen six major CPI (Maoist) and two PLFI arrests in 2013 but no TSPC ones. In 2012, the Latehar police made 41 major CPI (Maoist) arrests, but picked up only two TSPC members and three members of a splinter group, the TSPC-1. At the same time, policemen who deal with the TSPC have no doubt about the reasons for its efficacy.
“At the end of the day, they are an extremist organisation—no different from the Maoists. If anything, they are more survivalist, and hence more efficient, as they are smaller,” says a policeman. Most policemen who communicate with Brajesh have an uncomfortable handler-asset relationship with him. “Never let them think they are in control. Never let them decide the venue and timing of meetings.
Always let them know that they need you more than you would ever need them,” says a source, showing a call from Brajesh early that morning Lawalong, 30,000 of whose 36,000 acres are forest land, is the pond in which the TSPC swims. Block vice-chairperson Sahu would have you believe the vote by consensus for it had full support. “The people of the block sat down and decided that actually fighting elections would involve a lot of money. So the people held meetings and decided whom they would want for each available post,” he says. If the scale of the TSPC’s unopposed victory makes this consensus suspect, there are some who tell you it was.
“They threatened my father into withdrawing his nomination papers,” says 24-year-old Nirbhay Singh. There is also talk of people being roughed up. Lamta panchayat’s president Amit Kumar (37) admits they had to talk some people out of their nominations. “There was someone against me too. People made him understand the importance of maintaining a good atmosphere,” he claims.
Amit insists the TSPC has done a lot for development of the area. “We never voted in elections… At some point, some of our youngsters understood that the Maoists were fooling them,” he says. Though the going rate is 3 to 5 per cent per project, Amit insists the TSPC does not collect any levy from his panchayat. “They mean well for us. The TSPC is violent because the Maoists are.
When the Maoists are gone, the TSPC will come out and work for the development of this place,” he says. If and when the TPSC does decide to come into the mainstream officially, president of the district council Mamta Devi (24) will be central to the scheme of things. Mamta is the wife of Laxman Ganjhu, better known as TSPC zonal commander ‘Kohram’. She has been in politics long enough to identify her husband as a “contractor”.
Mamta, who stays in a large house surrounded by a seven-foot concrete boundary wall under construction, joined former state chief minister Babulal Marandi’s Jharkhand Vikas Morcha in September 2012 and harbours hopes of getting a ticket for the Assembly elections. Claiming that she has nothing to do with the TSPC, she says: “The common people of this block elected me, and I remain responsible only to them.”
What could bring the TSPC down is that it may be getting too big for its own good. India’s Marxist-Leninist organisations have an amoebic way of surviving—they split as they go forward. The TSPC, born of one such division, already has a TSPC-1 faction. The police also realise that the relationship with the TSPC can only be temporary, and that their control is not absolute. The special branch has already withdrawn its support to the arrangement.
“There is no directive from the police headquarters on how to deal with the TSPC. It all depends on the superintendent of police of the day,” confesses a policeman. Among those not keen on remaining cosy with the TSPC reportedly is K Vijay Kumar, one of the advisors to the state Governor under the ongoing President’s Rule, who retired as director general of the CRPF.
One course forward eventually may be the TSPC fighting elections, after bargaining for a surrender. Given how they have successfully managed the panchayat seats, that route has been tested by them. Brajesh’s brother Ganesh Ganjhu incidentally contested the 2009 Assembly elections on a Jharkhand Mukti Morcha ticket, coming second.
He has since moved to the BJP. ‘There is no future. Either the Maoists will die, or I’ In his first media interaction ever, TSPC ‘supreme commander’ Gopal Singh Bhokta alias Brajesh Ganjhu denies his outfit was formed by Ganjhus (an SC community) against the Yadav-dominated CPI (Maoists). He claims their differences were ideological, that Maoists forced them to take up arms. Excerpts from an interview with Ashutosh Bhardwaj somewhere on the Jharkhand-Bihar border: On charges of links with the police:
“Not a single policeman was present there (at the March 27-28 encounter)… In fact, the first casualty was ours. If anyone has a doubt, check the satellite cameras—I am sure people have it at every place these days.” On the reason for parting of ways with Maoists: “People say Ganjhus defected on caste grounds against Yadavs. Nonsense! Many front soldiers of the CPI (Maoist) are Ganjhus and the TSPC has many leaders of other castes.
It was purely an ideological divide as the Maoists had deviated from their path and come to indulge in plain violence without mass movement… Yes, the system is bad. So let’s change it, but why violence?” On differences with Maoists: “Maoists apne hi bhai hain, bhatak gaye hain (The Maoists are our own brothers, they have just lost the way). If a brother kills a brother, does he become an enemy? He still remains a brother.”
On Maoists’ offer of a ‘ceasefire’: “What will happen with a ceasefire? They will continue to kill innocent people and spread terror. Ceasefire will be meaningful only when they completely denounce violence.” On giving up the gun: “We do not want violence, but the moment we lay down arms, they (Maoists) will kill us. If they get satisfied by killing me, I am ready to sacrifice myself. But they will not, so I am forced to fight, even teach my son to fight… Who with a family would like to indulge in violence?”
On the way forward: “The CPI (Maoist) is a huge organisation, having many highly qualified and educated members. We are nothing before them. Still they do not realise the futility of violence. We now hear they are sending thousands of Maoists from Nepal and Chhattisgarh to eliminate us. What will they get? Is it revolution? Do you think the TSPC will be intimidated?… Future? There is none. Sab mare jayenge (Everyone will die). Ya to Maobadi mara jayega, ya main (Either the Maoists will die, or I). Future will be secure only when there is no killing, everyone has food and work.”
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/wi...hand/1105385/0


Forces taking battle to Maoists’ own turf
Every year from mid-March to mid-June, when the trees shed their leaves and forests in central India wear a depleted look, it is time for the Maoists to step up their activities. Going by their track record, it is during this period of declared offensives – what in their parlance is called Tactical Counter Offensive Campaigns (TCOC) -Maoists get most casualties. In the past, the security forces’ strategy was to defend while naxals – much more vulnerable to detection during this period-went on the offensive across the Red Corridor and surrounding areas.
Now, security forces are on the offensive and are taking the battle to the Maoist camps – a strategy that seems to be paying dividends as about 33 Maoists have been killed in less than three weeks. “During this March-June period, Maoists are at their most vulnerable. Security forces are now venturing out to remote areas after long marches and conducting operations,” a top official involved in the anti-naxal operations told HT.
“This year the TCOC started a little late on March 22 possibly because the Maoists are already reeling under serious military reverses and a proactive approach by the security forces.” These months are also when top Maoist leaders meet and devise future strategies while keeping the security forces engaged elsewhere. “We have increased the quality and quantity of our counter offensives which are producing rich results.
This time we are taking the fight right to their camps,” said Zulfiquar Hasan, IGP, CRPF, Chhattisgarh, one of the worst-affected states. From June to October, Maoist activity is usually minimal because of heavy monsoon rains when rivers swell and vast swathes of forest areas get inundated. Their activity picks up again in December-January.
The Maoists’ activity peaked in 2008-09 followed by deep military reverses in Jharkhand, West Bengal, Bihar and large parts of Orissa. About half of the 35-40 members who comprise the central committee, the supreme Maoist political body, are behind bars or have been killed.
“Because of the reverses, a deliberation is on within the top Maoist leadership to decide what strategy to take for the future. They have also been unable to hold their five-yearly Congress which was due last year,” the official added. The Ninth Congress was held in 2007 in the Saranda jungles of West Singhbhum in Jharkhand. Intelligence sources said while the Maoists are trying strengthen their Eastern Regional Bureau to expand base in the insurgency-prone Northeast, their success may be limited by the presence of strong local insurgent groups there.
The main stronghold of the Maoists still continue to be the Dandakaranya forests in the Chhattisgarh-Maharashtra-Andhra Pradesh belt, which is run under the Dandakaranya Special Zone Committee of the naxals. With its headquarters at Abujhmaad, this zone is also called the Central Guerrilla Base.
In 2011, according to the home ministry, 182 districts in the country had been affected in relative degrees by the Maoist movement, indicating a sharp drop from the 223 districts across 20 states in 2008.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/India-...1-1047856.aspx


Maoist camp busted
Maoists managed to give security forces a slip during a raid by the latter in the Sunabeda Wildlife Sanctuary, 32 km from here, on Friday. The security personnel, however, seized huge cache of explosives and other materials from the Maoist camp near Bhaosil village under Soseng gram panchayat within Komna police limits. Nuapada SP Umashankar Dash said the seized items included a revolver, bullets, Maoist literature, medicines, uniforms, bags and food items.
Dash added that more than 15 to 20 Maoists were in the camp during the raid. “Combing operation has been intensified and efforts are on to nab the Maoists,” he added.
http://newindianexpress.com/states/o...cle1554793.ece


Wanted Maoist leader arrested in Odisha
Malkangiri: A Maoist leader, wanted for several incidents of murder, was on Sunday arrested from Chitrakonda area of Malkangiri district. Trinath Golori alias Chandra (35) was picked up from a market near Chitrakonda police station during a special operation, Superintendent of Police Akhileswar Singh said.
Regarded as the right hand man of senior Maoist leader Madhab in the region, Trinth was involved in the Maoist activities for the last four years, he said. He was wanted for the murder of two policemen, two village guards and one panchayat samiti member in different areas of the state in the recent past, he said. PTI
http://zeenews.india.com/news/odisha...ha_843617.html


Security forces in West Bengal unearth cache of arms and ammunition
Jhargram (West Bengal), April 21 (ANI): In a joint operation, personnel of state police and para-military forces unearthed and seized considerable amount of arms and ammunition including mines and country made pistols from the jungles of Paschim Medinipur district of West Bengal. This was disclosed to the mediapersons yesterday. A police official, Dilip Manik said,” All the arms recovered are not old; some seems to be new. However, some were buried under the soil for quite a considerable time.”
This region of Jhargram in the district from where the arms were seized was Binpur Block that was a hotbed for Maoist activities over the past couple of years. Among the recovered arms and other lethal items were two landmines, four kilograms of tiffin mines, three challenger mines and 15 bore rifles, one pistol and some bullets.
No sooner than the landmines were detected, the bomb disposal squad (BDS) of the state police was summoned and it nipped the bud, whatever the Maoists had intended, by diffusing the lethal materials.
http://www.newstrackindia.com/newsde...mmunition.html


Trader abducted by Reds in Malkangiri
KORAPUT: Maoists abducted a trader accusing him of being a police informer in Malkangiri district on Friday night. The kidnapped trader, R Gopi, is from Udaigiri village. Around 11 pm, a group of armed Maoists, including women, reached Gopi’s home and forcibly took him with them.
Till Saturday evening, there was no news of the whereabouts of the kidnapped trader and due to remoteness of the area, which is about 70 km from Malkangiri, police were also facing problem in tracking down the rebels. SP (Malkangiri) Akhileswar Singh said, “We have information that Maoists have kidnapped the trader. Though an investigation has been initiated, we are yet to trace him.”
However, brushing the Maoist charges that the kidnapped trader was a police informer, the SP said, “He was not our informer. Gopi was running a small shop in the village and was also working as a private driver. The Maoists might have kidnapped him for some other reason which will be known during investigation.”
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/c...w/19655455.cms


Bombs at RIMS
Imphal, April 20 2013 : Two powerful Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) were found planted inside the compound of Manipur’s premier medical institute Regional Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) here Saturday. The unexploded bombs were found in a garden of RIMS campus closed to the office building of the institute’s Director around 8 am when the sweepers go there for their morning work.
Personnel of 6 India Reserved Battalion (IRB) retrieved the bombs weighing 1 kg each. Later, a team of Manipur Police bomb disposal squad defused them. The armed outfit Maoist Communist Party (MCP) has claimed responsibility for the bombs found in the RIMS campus, an Imphal local evening daily has reported. Meanwhile, in a statement, media advisor of RIMS has observed that it would have been a tragedy had the bombs exploded.
The RIMS authority once again appealed to one and all not to vitiate the hospital and academic atmosphere with such violent activities. Apart from the employees there are students from all States in general and the NE region in particular.
Hundreds of patients and relatives visit the institute everyday and Medical, Dental and Nursing colleges are located inside the same campus. So, violence of any sort will send a wrong signal, the statement observed. The RIMS authority also sought cooperation from all sections of the people in the smooth and peaceful conduct of these institutes.
http://www.e-pao.net/GP.asp?src=27..210413.apr13

Source: http://www.signalfire.org/?p=24037

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Plan to declare Ballia as Naxal-affected district
VARANASI: Contrary to claims of ending the Maoist problem in affected districts of Sonebhadra, Chandauli and Mirzapur, the police are gearing up to declare Ballia as Maoist affected district. “A proposal is being prepared by Ballia police in this regard,” said IG GL Meena while talking to TOI. It has yet to be submitted to the IG for forwarding it to the DGP office and the state government.
Despite these efforts of police, it is a million dollar question that on what ground this district can be declared as Maoist affected area. When the state government declared Sonebhadra, Chandauli and Mirzapur as Maoist affected districts, 53 villages of Ballia, which are linked with bordering areas of Bihar, had also been kept in the list of Maoist affected areas.
However, the left wing extremists never showed presence in Ballia. As per the records available in IG office, in 2001, Vijay Chauhan, who had links with Bihar-based Maoist ultras, had tried to kill Musafir Chauhan and his wife but the villagers had foiled his bid and he was also killed in the incident. In reaction to the incident, the wife of Musafir was murdered on November 18, 2012. It was suspected that Vijay’s kin had sought help of Maoist ultras to avenge his killing. After the incident, a demand for providing additional paramilitary forces came from Ballia police.
During recent meetings of zone police, some officials said that instead of demanding additional force, the demand for including Ballia in the list of Maoist affected districts should be made as it would help in getting all the benefits like the funds of security related expenditure (SRE) and special infrastructure scheme (SIS), apart from permanent deployment of Central forces. Hence, a plan to prepare a proposal was finalised. Some officials are not convinced with the demand to declare Ballia as Maoist affected district.
The officials revealed that any demand of this nature can be made only after the attack on government establishments, government officials and employees, police or paramilitary forces and bid to loot weaponry of forces by the Maoist groups. The IG admitted that no such incident had been reported from Ballia so far. But, as the officials are preparing a proposal and IG said that it would be forwarded to the DGP office and the state government, it becomes clear that officials are in no mood to ‘discourage’ their subordinates.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/c...w/19669589.cms


Maoists abduct, kill panchayat official in Chhattisgarh
RAIPUR: Maoists abducted a village panchayat secretary and beat him to death in the forests of Karramal in Raigarh district of Chhattisgarh. Police and the villagers found the body of Karramal village panchayat secretary Lakpati Dansena in the forests on Sunday after he was abducted by a group of armed Maoists late on Saturday night.
Maoist cadres, including women, first reached the house of village panchayat secretary’s brother Gajpati Dansena and inquired about Lakpati’s house. They asked Gajpati to follow them to the house from where Lakpati was dragged out and taken to the Karramal forests
. The rebels left Gajpati after beating him. They tied Lakpati’s hands, beating him to death with lathis and later left the body in the forests, police said. The rebels dropped pamphlets warning the villagers against giving any information to the police and demanding increase in wages of labourers engaged in plucking of tendu (beedi) leaves.
The pamphlets described that the action against village panchayat secretary was taken by Bargarh Zonal Committee of CPI (Maoist). This is perhaps the first Naxalite related murder in Raigarh district, which shares a border with Odisha where the Bargarh Zonal Committee of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) is active.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/c...w/19670900.cms


First FIR against Maoists in 2000
VARANASI: The Maoist problem had started in Naugarh region of Chandauli and some parts of Sonebhadra in mid-nineties. However, the first FIR against MCC ultras in this region was lodged with the Naugarh police in October 2000. Since then, over 100 people, including government officials and employees, were killed by the Maoist ultras. Initially the cadres formally branched out with the emergence of Dakshin Purvanchal Sangathanik Sub-zonal Committee (DPSSZC).
They expanded their network by forming area committees and local area committees. In 2001, they looted 14 SLRs from the PAC camp in Mirzapur district. In spite of the obvious presence of the MCC in Naugarh and in the forests of Mirzapur and Sonebhadra districts, it was only the mass killing of PAC and police personnel in November 2004 which compelled the government to realize the gravity of the matter.
It was not so that the government was unaware about the truth. In 2002, late Prime Minister Chandrashekhar had drawn the attention of the then Union home minister Lal Krishna Advani to the influx of outlaws from violence-ridden Bihar. In a letter dated July 31, 2002, the former PM had expressed concern over the spread of violence from Bihar to UP and requested to take note of it and initiate appropriate measures. After these developments, the three districts were declared as Maoist affected.
But, till then the Maoists had formed Sone Ganga Vindhyachal Zonal Committee to replace DPSSZC to control their operations in Chandauli, Sonebhadra, Mirzapur in UP and Buxar, Rohtas, Bhojpur and Bhabhua districts of Bihar. The Naugarh Chandraprabha Sub-zonal Committee, Robertsganj Machi SZC and Duddhi Chopan Bhojpur SZC work under this zonal committee. The Maoists had their networks in 293 villages of Sonebhadra, 241 of Chandauli and 107 villages in Mirzapur district.
The Mulayam Singh Yadav government decided to a adopt two-prong strategy. As part of it, the police adopted aggression anti-Maoist operations while emphasis was also laid on ensuring overall development of the Maoist affected districts, which proved ideal harbour for Maoist groups due to difficult terrains and geographical condition. These districts are connected with the borders of Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/c...w/19669584.cms


Cameras for tiger census record ultra movements
GUWAHATI, April 21 – Use of modern technology can help a great deal in dealing with militants and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have already been used to track Maoist rebels in some states of the country. Meanwhile, in an interesting development, movement of militants inside a National Park of the State has come to light after such movements were tracked in cameras installed for tiger census.
Highly placed official sources told The Assam Tribune that movements of some militants with weapons were recorded in the cameras installed in the Nameri National Park for tiger census. Sources said that the cameras were installed in different interior places of the National Park for tiger census and any movement in front of the cameras is recorded.
But when the concerned officials checked the recordings in the cameras, to their surprise, they found that movements of militants with weapons were also recorded in the same along with the photos of the animals including tigers. Sources said that according to information available with the police and security agencies, there were movements of the members of the Songbijit faction of the National Democratic Front of Boroland (NDFB) in the Nameri area and the militants, whose movements were recorded in the cameras, must be of them only.
But the incident proved beyond doubt that there have been movements of armed militants within the National Park. Meanwhile, on the demand of the Chief Minister for use of UAVs in the interior places of the State for tracking the movement of militants, sources said that the proposal would have to get clearance from the Defence Ministry first for use of air space.
The UAVs were used in some of the Maoist affected areas of the country including Chhattisgarh to photograph the movement of the Maoist rebels. Sources said that the UAVs used in India so far are only for taking photographs and those are not equipped with weapons like the ones used mostly by the United States army in the operations against Talibans in Afghanistan. On the other hand, full fledged use of the UAVs in the Kaziranga National Park for tracking the movement of the poachers is yet to start.
The Government has taken a decision to use UAVS in the National Park in view of the spurt of poaching of rhinos and the test flight was carried out in presence of Forest Minister Rockybul Hussain recently. But as the necessary air space use clearance from the Defence Ministry is yet to be received, the test flight of one UAV was carried out in a limited area only and flights into the interior areas can be done only after receiving the permission.
The Ministry of Environment and Forests has already sought clearance from the Defence Ministry for the use of UAVs in the Kaziranga and if the permission is granted, the Park would become the first in the country to use such technology for dealing with poachers. The Government has also started the process of using “Electronic eye” for dealing with poachers as was done in the Corbett National Park.
http://www.assamtribune.com/scripts/...d=apr2213/at07

Source: http://www.signalfire.org/?p=24063

[TheGodlessUtopian]

CRPF contingent escapes Maoist ambush in Chhattisgarh
Raipur, April 24 (IANS) Troopers of the para-military Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) had a narrow escape Wednesday in a jungle pocket of Chhattisgarh’s insurgency-riddled Bijapur district as Maoists ambushed a search party, police said. Bullets were fired, but no casualty was reported in the hour-long gunbattle, officials at the police headquarters here said. Police said the troopers sent the insurgents rushing for cover by opening fire in retaliation.
A powerful 10-kg Improvised Explosive Device (IED) was later recovered from the spot. A team of troopers of CRPF 199th battalion reportedly left the district headquarters – Bijapur – for search operations in nearby areas. While returning, as the team was between Naimed and Peddakodepal, Maoist insurgents who were hiding in the bushes exploded a mine and also started intense firing.
The para-military troopers also took position immediately, and returned fire. The gun-battle lasted about an hour, and insurgents withdrew into the cover of the dense forests. Police later searched the spot where the gun-battle occurred, to find a 10-kg mine, 200 metre wire, and two detonators. The bomb disposal squad later defused the IED recovered from the spot, averting what might have been a tragic explosion.
http://www.newstrackindia.com/newsdetails/2013/04/24/332–CRPF-contingent-escapes-Maoist-ambush-in-Chhattisgarh-.html


Police arrest two Maoists in W.Bengal
April 24 (ANI): Police in West Bengal’s Jhargram District arrested two Maoists and recovered the skeletal remains of three persons on Wednesday. Superintendent of Police of Jhargram, Bharati Ghosh said: “Belpahari Police and Additional Superintendent of Police (head quarters) recovered those dead bodies. China alias Subodh Hansda who is a well known Maoist leader of Binpur has been taken into police remand and we located a dead body of Sukhomoy Hembram.
Through another Maoist leader Bhagabat Hansda, we located two dead bodies of Ganesh Soren and Jiten Murmu. The three dead bodies had been identified by family members. Two cases are running in Belpahari police station and the investigation continues.” Recently police arrested rebels from Jhargram in eastern West Bengal state, a Maoist hot-bed. The arrested Maoists helped security forces trace the skeletal remains of three persons, out of which one was identified as a retired sub-inspector.
http://www.newstrackindia.com/newsde...-W-Bengal.html


Three Naxals held in Chhattisgarh
Raipur: Three Naxalites were arrested in separate search operations in Bastar district of Chhattisgarh, police said Wednesday. “Two wanted ultras were nabbed by joint contingent of district force and Border Security Force (BSF) from Amagaon village under Tadoki police station limits of Kanker district yesterday,” a senior police official said. Those arrested were identified as Leelaram Usendi (30) and Sawan Singh Dhruv (52), the official said.
The police party was on a combing operation in the region when they got tip off about the presence of ultras there, following which it rounded them up, he said. In another search operation, Ganga Ram Korram (45) was arrested from forests of restive Benur police station area of Narayanpur district today during combing operations. Korram admitted to being involved in Maoist movement during interrogation, he said. The arrested cadres were involved in several incidents of loot, arson and murder, he said. PTI
http://zeenews.india.com/news/chhatt...rh_844469.html

Source: http://www.signalfire.org/?p=24108

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Two engines derail in C’garh; Naxal hand suspected
Raipur: Two engines of a goods train derailed in Maoist-hit Bastar district of Chhattisgarh after suspected Naxalites removed the fishplates from tracks on Jagdalpur -Vishakhapattam route Thursday, a top police officer said. According to preliminary information, two engines of a goods train going towards Visakhapatnam jumped off the track in the area, over 250km from here, which is a Naxal belt, Bastar Additional Superintendent of Police S R Salaam said over phone.
A police team has been dispatched to Chhotekaklur area, where the incident took place, he said, adding “reports were received that ultras had removed the fishplates from the railway track early this morning.” Freight trains to Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh usually pass through this route and Naxals often target them, Salaam added. PTI
http://zeenews.india.com/news/chhatt...ed_844717.html


CRPF seeks IAF help to evacuate 500 men stuck in Naxal hotbed
A week after nine alleged Maoists, including five women, were gunned down by security forces in Sukma district of Chhattisgarh, around 500 men of the the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) have remained stuck in the dense jungles for want of evacuation.
The CRPF approached the Indian Air Force (IAF) and requested them to extend their flying hours and evacuate the men on an emergency basis. The IAF, which provides 80 flying hours every month to various security forces in Chhattisgarh for different purposes, has already exhausted its quota for this month. The CRPF sent letters to the IAF top brass requesting them to grant 35 additional flying hours so that their men stuck in the Maoist hotbed could be evacuated.
By Tuesday evening all the men were airlifted. Officials said they planned the airlifting of the jawans as the Maoists planted IEDs on the route, which they had used to reach the encounter site. Around 1,200 CRPF personnel had gone for the Sukma operation along with the Andhra Pradesh Greyhounds and the Chhattisgarh Police on April 16. They were dispersed in different directions and around 500 men were holed up in the area.
“They are camping in an area which is a Maoist hotbed. We requested the IAF to deploy their Mi-17 helicopters for evacuating our men,” said a senior official.
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/cr...otbed/1107388/


Maoist held with aide
RANCHI: The district police on Tuesday arrested a zonal commander of CPI ( Maoist) Nirmal Horo alias Nirdesh Horo alias Ignesh Horo from Bariyatu locality in the city along with one of his aides Sanjay Hooter. The rebel was arrested while police were conducting raids to nab bike thieves in the area. SSPRanchiSaket Kumar Singh confirmed the arrests.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/c...w/19719238.cms


Maoists kill two villagers in Odisha
Bhubaneswar, Apr 25: Maoists killed two people in Odisha a day after kidnapping them from a village, police said Thursday. The rebels also set afire a mobile phone tower in the same village. Superintendent of Police Akhileshwar Singh said the Maoist guerrillas on Tuesday kidnapped at gun point three people from Kyang village in Malkangiri district, about 650 km from here, accusing them of being police informers.
The rebels killed two people Wednesday night and released one person. They also set on fire a mobile phone tower in Kyang village, Singh told IANS. Kyong village is located near the state’s border with Chhattisgarh. Security personals were sent to the village Thursday, the officer added.
This is the third such incident reported from Malkangiri district this year. Earlier on April 4, Maoists killed a village council chief in Kurmanur area of the district. Another man was killed by the rebels in a village close to Odisha’s border with Andhra Pradesh Jan 16, according to the police officer. Maoists are active in more than half of state’s 30 districts. The district of Malkangiri is considered one of the strongholds of the rebels.
http://www.indiatvnews.com/news/indi...sha-22231.html


Maoists abduct construction workers in Bihar
Patna, Apr 25: Maoist guerrillas abducted five labourers engaged in road construction in Bihar late Wednesday, but released three of them early Thursday, police said. Nearly 40 armed rebels abducted the labourers from Basaia area of Jamui district, some 200 km from here, a police official said, adding that an operation has been launched to rescue the kidnapped labourers from Maoists.
Police suspect that the Maoists chose to abduct the workers after the construction company they were working with refused to pay extortion money to the rebels. Earlier, the rebels had abducted some labourers of the same construction company in Jamui but later released them unharmed. Jamui is considered a rebel stronghold.
http://www.indiatvnews.com/news/indi...har-22230.html


Jharkhand set to ban four more rebel outfits
RANCHI: The state home department has decided to ban four more rebel organizations active in Jharkhand. With this the number of banned outfits in Jharkhand, including CPI (Maoist) and People’s Liberation Front of India (PLFI), reached 10. State principal home secretary J B Tubid said based on reports of intelligence agencies the state government has decided to ban four more organizations which were involved in activities against the interest of the state and the law of the land.
The banned organizations are Jharkhand Jan Mukti Parishad, Swatantra Jharkhand Prastuti Committee, Sashastra People Morcha and Sangharsh Jan Mukti Morcha. Sources said till now six organizations were listed as banned outfits which includes CPI (Maoist), PWG, PLFI, Tritiya Prastuti Committee, Kranti Kisan Committee and Mahila Mukti Morcha. A senior IPS officer of the state said based on the activities of the organizations collected by the intelligence agencies a report has been submitted to the home department.
“After a thorough review of the report submitted by the police headquarters the home department took a final decision. This time, we have included the name of such organizations which are not quite active on the ground but have been making efforts to reorganize their cadre at grassroots level. The four organizations were active through publication of literature and circulation of those among the masses in remote areas,” said the IPS officer.
Supporting the ban of an organization which is not even active the officer said past experiences show that once an outfit gains foothold it becomes difficult for police to control its activities. “We have faced difficulties in case of PLFI and Tritiya Prastuti Committee. So, we have decided not to take any chance and nip it in the bud before it gets out of control. If the department had taken this type of an initiative in case of PLFI and Tritiya Prastuti Committee, no other outfit other than the CPI (Maoist) would have survived,” said the IPS officer.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/c...w/19719173.cms

Red leaders’ presence heightens fear in Gumla
Gumla: Two Maoist commanders from Chhattisgarh and Bihar have arrived at Gumla forests with their cadres to strengthen security cover of top Red leader Arvindji, police sources said. The sources said Nishantji from Chhattisgarh and Pawanji from Bihar recently reached the Chainpur forest with at least 60 fighters to provide extra security cover to Arvindji, who had crossed over to the district with a big contingent, soon after the encounter at Katiya on January 7. “The duo’s arrival has led to apprehension that there may be heightened rebel strike,” a source in police said.
It is for the first time that such a large number of rebels has come at Sivil, Luru-Saksari and Roret areas in Chainpur area in the district. Police had specific information about a large number of Maoists presence in the forest and on March 13-14 an encounter took place in the forest in which a JAP jawan was killed while two others were injured. DGP Rajiv Kumar and other top police officers had rushed to the forest to encourage the personnel engaged in the encounter and Kumar claimed a number of casualties on part the Maoists.
On March 28, the Chatra incident took place when TPC men killed 10 Maoists, which had prompted the Reds to strike hard at the district’s Chainpur block headquarters killing five policemen and Chainpur police station and blew up block office three days later. Maoists had used cylinder bombs in blowing up the block office as one such was recovered from the debris.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/c...w/19719177.cms

Source: http://www.signalfire.org/?p=24117

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Naxal bandh gets lukewarm response
NAGPUR: The call for Gadchiroli district bandh given by the western regional committee (WRC) of banned Communist Party of India (Maoist) on Saturday fizzled out. WRC had joined the bandh call of central regional bureau (CRB) which had declared a nationwide strike in protest of fake encounters and killings of innocent villagers in the name of Naxal by security forces.
Most parts of the district remained unaffected with state transport buses and private vehicles plying without any obstructions. Sources said while most of the roads were free, reports of tree felling came from places beyond Pendri on a stretch between Kasansoor and Pakhanjur.
Highly sensitive places like interiors of Dhanora, Etapalli, Bhamragarh and Aheri talukas were peaceful. According to a district sources, there was not much propaganda from rebels too as the reds’ regular banners and pamphlets were missing. Government officials were, however, urged not to visit interior villages or stay back in sensitive areas on the bandh day. Police sources said there were no incidents of violence reported from any corner of the district.
http://articles.timesofindia.indiati...y-tree-felling


Maoists gun down two policemen
Two police personnel were killed in a Naxal attack in Chhattisgarh’s Kanker district on a day when a bandh called by the CPI (Maoist) partially-affected life in the State’s southern fringes. The incident took place when Border Security Force (BSF) and the district police force were on a joint combing operation in the jungles at the Tadoti Police Station area on Saturday.
“Early in the morning, when a group of about 100 security personnel were patrolling the area, a group of about 50 rebels started firing on the forces in the Shakti Ghat area,” Kanker SP R.N. Das told The Hindu. Sub-inspector Santosh Ekka and head constable Aliram Usendi were killed and two injured. Their bodies have been recovered and injured sub-inspectors Ravindra Mandavi and Somaru Usendi were shifted to Raipur for treatment.
The Madh division of the rebels’ Dandakaranya Special Zonal Committee led the attack, Mr. Das said. Deployment of six battalions of the BSF had largely restricted Maoists to the Paralkote Reserve Forest area on Maharashtra border. As the rebels are not as organised in Kanker as they are further south, the fact that they mobilised two of their platoons to counter-attack the joint ops of the 123rd Battalion area of the BSF has surprised senior officers.
On April 16, in an encounter between the Greyhounds and Maoists at Sukma district’s Puwarthy village, nine rebels were killed. Within 24 hours, Maoists killed one inspector of the elite anti-Naxal force in Kaorgutta village, close to the Andhra Pradesh border. In a press release issued earlier this week, rebels warned the security forces that the “administration is forgetting how in April 2010, 76 security personnel were killed.”
Maoists have asked police and paramilitary forces to stop “Operation Green Hunt,” which they claim is displacing millions in Chhattisgarh. Saturday’s bandh was called to mark the killing of Karimnagara-Khammam-Warangal (KKW) Divisional Committee members of the North Telangana Zonal Committee.
Bamboo depot torched
Meanwhile, in a separate incident in Kanker district, around 100 Naxals torched a bamboo depot of the forest department in the Bande police station area on Friday night. Security forces have been dispatched to Bande, Additional Superintendent of Police (ASP) C.D. Tondon told PTI. A security alert has been sounded and additional police forces deployed in parts of south Chhattisgarh.
http://www.thehindu.com/news/nationa...cle4660197.ece


Bharat bandh call by Naxals today
NAGPUR: The Gadchiroli-based Western Regional Committee (WRC) of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist) has announced that it would participate in the nationwide bandh call given by the Central Regional Bureau on Saturday. The rebels have declared ‘bandh’ protesting the so-called fake encounters and killings of the villagers.
A press release released by the WRC’s spokesperson Shriniwas has claimed that security forces have been ruthlessly gunning down villagers in Gadchiroli district labelling such encounters as gun-battle between security forces and Naxals. The rebels have also underlined the fact that senior woman Naxal cadre Sangeeta Atram was gang raped before being killed from point blank range by the C-60 jawans in the encounter of Sindesur in Dhanora on April 12 where four Naxals and a commando were killed.
Two villagers, including a hearing and speech impaired one, were also killed. The rebels have also launched an attack on the senior officials of Gadchiroli, especially superintendent of police Mohammed Suwez Haque, for killing and labelling three villagers as Naxals when they had nothing to do with the movement in the encounter of Bhatpar on the banks of river Indravati in Bhamragarh tehsil on April 4.
The Naxals have also highlighted the wrong identifications of the slain cadres. The rebels have claimed that police had projected Bhatpar village resident Sunita Tado as platoon 7 deputy commander Rita alias Reena. They had also claimed that Pengunda village resident Shardu Pusal was projected as a dalam member when he was not one.
The other ‘so-called Naxal’ killed was none but an innocent villager by the name Prakash Pallo, claimed the press communication of the Maoist front. Apart from labelling SP Haque’s ‘Nau jeevan’ drive for encouraging surrenders as a mere eyewash, the rebels claimed that the police and central paramilitary forces are victimizing the innocent tribal rather than safeguarding their interest.
http://articles.timesofindia.indiati...tehsil-dhanora


Naxals destroy Gram Panchayat Building in Gadchiroli
Some suspected Naxals burnt down a Gram Panchayat building in Godalwahi village in Dhanora division of Gadchiroli district on Sunday evening. According to Gadchiroli police, the Naxals first burnt down some official documents of the Godalwahi Gram Panchayat and then set ablaze the Gram Panchayat building. Condemning the destruction of the Gram Panchayat building, a press statement issued by the office of the Superintendent of Police (SP) Gadchiroli said, “The destruction of Godalwahi Gram Panchayat building by the Naxals was with an intention to stop the development of tribal people of the district and to create terror in their minds.
Even the villagers have condemned it strongly”. Police have registered a case in Dhonora police station and are carrying our search operations in the area. Meanwhile Naxals fired on the teams of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and District police near Jarawandi forest under Etapalli division of the district on Sunday.
According to police, the police and the CRPF teams were moving on an operation after secret information about a Naxal hideout. The Naxals fired on team of the CRPF but managed to escape when the CRPF and Police retaliate the fire.
http://www.thehindu.com/news/nationa...cle4666822.ece


Cops fear Red surge in urban jungle now
MUMBAI: After successfully taking on Naxalites in Gondia and Gadchiroli districts, law enforcment agencies are now worried about the emergence of the left-wing rebels and their sympathizers in a big way in the Mumbai-Thane and the Pune-Nashik-Surat belts. A senior IPS officer said on Friday that a month ago a hardcore Naxalite was arrested in Gadchiroli and he made sensational disclosures about the increasing Naxal activity in these urban parts of the state and Gujarat.
“It appears that the Naxalites have set up several front organizations in these areas to lure college students into Naxalism,” the officer said. “We have successfully tackled them in Gondia and Gadchiroli, and now it appears that Mumbai, Thane, Pune, Nashik and Surat districts are on the Naxals’ radar. We have stepped up our vigil in these areas and are in constant touch with neighbouring states.”
The officer said Naxals had stalled development in Gadchiroli and Gondia for over two decades. “Well over 250 villages are without power, BSNL towers have been damaged, and most schools in the districts are either shut or have no students,” the officer said. “We are making all possible efforts to bring the villagers into the mainstream.”
The officer said a comprehensive plan had been drafted to take 40 students from a village on a statewide tour to brief them about developmental activities. “Students in Gondia and Gadchiroli think that across the state there is no power or roads, as none of them has stepped outside the village,” the officer said. “All students in the two districts will be covered under the scheme.”
The officer said in six special operations in the two districts in the last eight months, 15 hardcore Naxalites were killed, 16 were arrested and a large quantity of arms and ammunition was seized. “We are well equipped to tackle the Naxal threat. We have the full cooperation of the villagers,” the officer said. “There is also free flow of information from neighbouring states, so we were able to check their activities.”
A month ago, the entire machinery was galvanized to take on Naxalites, said the officer. “There is uniform chain of command; all officers now report to the additional director general of police,” the officer said. “A special intelligence cell has been set up. A non-conventional operation and training centre has also been set up and special training is being imparted to police personnel.”
A former DGP said that compared to Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, the preparedness of the state police was not up to the mark. “The level of threat to Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh is similar, but budgetary allocation for Maharashtra is very meagre,” the former DGP said. “Maharashtra has only one helicopter, and that too is not in order on several occasions, whereas the Chhattisgarh and the AP police have more than half a dozen helicopters.”
http://articles.timesofindia.indiati...officer-gondia


Three Naxalites killed in encounter with CRPF in Jharkhand
At least three suspected Naxalites were killed in an encounter with men of the 209 CoBRA Batallion of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and Jharkhand Jaguars near Piri village in Latehar district of Jharkhand today. A spokesman for the CRPF said that the joint police team began the operation around 0800 hours today after getting information about the presence of 60-70 Naxalites in that area.
“Three bodies of Naxalites have been recovered. There are reports that seven Naxalites have been killed in the encounter. Search operation is going on,” the spokesman added. The spokesman said the three men whose bodies were recovered were wearing uniform of the Maoists. He said the intelligence inputs ha dpointed to the presence of Maoist leaders Mritunjay, Indrajeet, Narayan and Vikash along with large number of cadres in the area.
He said that, about 0900 hours, when the joint troops were advancing into the forest area, about 1.5 km north-east of Piri village, they came under heavy firing by the Maoists from the nearby hills. He said the troops took positions and retaliated to the fire effectively.
The firing lasted for about two hours. Apart from the bodies, the security forces also recovered one Insas rifle with two magazines and 38 rounds, two .315 rifles with eleven rounds, one wireless set, fifty ,22 rounds, five detonators, a grenade, a country-made bomb, three ammunition pouches, electric testers, torches, SIM cards, medicines and Naxal docuents. “The troops are still out and thorough search is going on in the area to nab the fleeing and injured Maoists,” the spokesman added. NNN
http://netindian.in/news/2013/04/29/...crpf-jharkhand


Top Maoist leader held in Assam
NEW DELHI: A CPI (Maoist) central committee member and chief of the outfit’s north-east operations, Aklanta Rabha alias Mahesh, was arrested by the Assam Police near Guwahati on Friday, in what the Central security agencies later described as a significant crackdown on the Reds’ plan to expand their arc of influence to the north-eastern states. Mahesh was the main facilitator for Maoists’ gun-running and served as a conduit for procuring sophisticated arms from across the border, sources in the Union home ministry told TOI.
A close associate of CPI (Maoist) “No. 2 leader” Prashant Bose alias Kishenda, he was the only Assamese represented on the outfit’s central committee. The agencies have been on his trail since 2006, when he was last apprehended only to be given bail. Mahesh is said to be part of the elite group of five top Maoist leaders in charge of operations in the tri-junction of Jharkhand-West Bengal-Northeast.
Other members include Kishenda, Deo Kumar Singh, Chandraprasad Yadav and Misir Besra. He is said to have been an enigma for the agencies, as neither his real name was known till his arrest nor his photograph available for proper identification. The Central agencies described the arrest of Mahesh, who hails from Assam’s Goalpara district, and his aide Suraj Rabha alias Bijoy, a top-ranking arms trainer of Maoists in Jharkhand, as a blow to Maoist’s recent efforts to make inroads into the north-eastern states through tactical tie-ups with local insurgent outfits like Manipur’s PLA.
The arrest marks the end of dry spell, as the last central committee member was arrested one-and-a-half year ago. According to Union home ministry estimates, CPI(Maoist) has around 100 cadres, including 25 to 30 armed ones, in Assam. As many as 23 of the 79 police stations in Tinsukia, Dibrugarh, Sibsagar, Dhemaji and North Lakhmipur districts in Assam were listed as Naxal-hit, with cadres allegedly extorting money from small tea gardens, cattle-rearing farms and individuals to sustain themselves.
According to the Assam Police, Mahesh and Bijoy admitted to having formed a core group in Assam and gradually spreading Maoists’ ideology in states like Arunachal Pradesh and Tripura.
http://articles.timesofindia.indiati...-home-ministry


Over 180 Maoist cadres in Assam: Police
Guwahati: At least 180 Maoist cadres, including 23 females, have built up a number of front organisations to spread its tentacles and form ties with ULFA, police said Friday. “A task force on Maoist activities in the state was formed and they have submitted details of 181 Maoist cadre in the state,” Assam Police IGP (Central Western Region) L R Bishnoi said here. He said, “Among the cadre, 23 are women and many of them are political workers.”
The Left-wing extremists are mainly active in upper Assam districts, parts of Kamrup Rural and Goalpara districts of lower Assam. “Since 1996, Maoists have been trying to form their base and built up Upper Assam Leading Committee and Lower Assam Leading Committee,” Bishnoi said. The IGP said that today’s arrest of CPI (Maoist) Central Committee member Aklanta Rabha in Guwahati has been a major success in the anti-Maoist effort. Bishnoi said as per interrogation reports of Rabha, Maoists have a five-pronged strategy in Assam and North Eastern region and have closer relations with ULFA.
Maoists are also exploring ways to buy arms from ULFA, play a mediocre role among militant outfits of North East and unite them, form a People’s Guerilla Army unit, and setp up camps in Arunachal Pradesh, he said. PTI
http://zeenews.india.com/news/assam/...ce_844931.html


Maoist big guns arrested in Guwahati
GUWAHATI: Guwahati Police, in a joint operation with army and CRPF, arrested two top leaders of CPI (Maoist) from the Jorabat area, on the outskirts of the city, on Friday. Security forces found one .22 pistol made in Spain, ammunition, PAN cards, driving license and seven SIM cards in their possession. Police said Aklanta Rabha (41) alias Maheshji is the lone member from the state in the CPI (Maoist) central committee.
He hails from the Dudhnoi area in Goalpara district. The other one, Siraj Rabha (35) alias Bijoy Rabha alias Suraj, is from the Boko area of Kamrup (rural) district. He is the central training instructor of the outfit in Jharkhand’s Giridih area. The duo has revealed the plans of the outfit, its area of operations and its ongoing activities in the state. A couple of weeks back, chief minister Tarun Gogoi had asked Union home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde to raise a battalion in the state dedicated to tackle the growing Maoist activities in the state.
Assam Police IGP (central western range) L R Bishnoi said the Maoists here are spreading their tentacles and have set up several frontal organizations like Biplabi Yuva League, Biplabi Sanskriti league, Biplabi Kabi Gosthi and have also been printing magazines like ‘Janagan’ from the Chaygaon area in Kamrup (rural) district. “We recovered a letter written by Maoist leader Aditya Bora from his possession where he was instructed to strengthen the outfit’s base in both upper and lower Assam and Arunachal Pradesh.
Maoists selected Arunachal Pradesh to set up base because of its geographical location and to grow nexus with the Paresh Baruah-led Ulfa hardliners hiding in the neighbouring state. Apart from holding the top post, Aklanta is also in charge of the eastern bureau of the outfit,” Bishnoi said. The eastern bureau of the outfit includes Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, West Bengal, Tripura and Jharkhand. The outfit believes to have five such bureaus in the country. Aditya Bora, a former Ulfa cadre, is the founder of Maoist base in the state and he was arrested three years back in Jharkhand. Bora has, however, jumped bail and is absconding.
http://articles.timesofindia.indiati...rs-aditya-bora


Maoist woman’s presence in Nilambur forest confirmed
MALAPPURAM: A team of Special Task Force of Tamilnadu police has confirmed the moist link of the gang which sighted near a primary health centre at Munda near Vazhikadavu in Nilambur on Saturday morning. The hospital staff Shantha Kumari has identified a photo of the woman Maoist activist from Karnataka, Komalam, that was shown by the STF members. A suspected gang of Maoists had approached the Primary Health Centre, early morning on Saturday seeking the help for treatment.
It was around 1.30am, a Purdhah clad woman and three men arrived the health centre and sought the help of hospital staff to consult the doctor. A s the front door of the PHC was locked, the woman approached the nursing assistant of the hospital Shantha Kumari through the back door of the hospital. The woman told the Shanthakumari that a person of their gang need an emergency medical care and she demanded to open the front door.
When Shanthaklumari informed the woman that doctor had gone on leave, the other members of the gang started to continuously knock on the main door. Following this one of the hospital staff Sulekha contacted police. Before police arrived the gang fled the scene. The photo of the same woman was also identified by the Sulekha. Following the confirmation of the presence of Maoists in the region, the 26 member Thunderbolts wing of Kerala police searched the colonies in the region in the evening. On last day police had informed that, there is no evidence to prove that the gang members were Maoist activists.
http://articles.timesofindia.indiati...suspected-gang


Maoist carrying a reward of Rs two lakh arrested in Dumka
A top Maoist carrying a reward of Rs two lakh on his head was Saturday arrested in Dumka district. “Jiten, alias Jiten Kishku alias Chunni, was arrested by jawans of Ranchi-based Assault Group and Dumka police near Talpahadi,” Superintendent of Police Hemant Toppo told reporters.
He said Jiten was allegedly involved in the Chilkari Massacre that had occurred on October 26, 2007 in which 20 people were killed during a function in Giridih district. The police officer also said the Maoist was allegedly involved in Bhelwaghati massacre, looting of 176 rifles from Home Guard Camp in Giridih district, killing a person in Dumka and in some other cases. “Jiten, who joined the Maoist ranks in 1999, was made the zonal commander of the Santhal Pargana in 2010,” the SP said. A country-made pistol, bullets and Rs 12,900 were seized from the spot, he said.
http://english.samaylive.com/regiona...-in-dumka.html


Maoists trying to set up bases in Meghalaya
GUWAHATI, April 27 – The arrest of hardcore Maoist rebel leader Aklanta Rabha alias Maheshji revealed that after establishing roots in almost all the districts of Assam, the rebels started making serious efforts to make strong bases in Meghalaya and the arrested rebel already established contacts with a number of Khasi boys in an attempt to win them over to the Maoist fold.
Highly placed police sources told The Assam Tribune that Aklanta joined the Maoist rebel group in 1996 and after his initial training in Jharkhand, he became the youngest member of the central committee of the Maoist rebels. However, after joining the Maoist fold, he spent most of his time outside Assam and Jharkhand Police was also looking for him. Sources said that Rabha married Rekharani, who was also a cadre of the Maoist rebels in Jharkhand.
But later his wife dissociated herself from the activities of the rebel outfit and was running a shop in Goalpara. The events which led to the arrest of Rabha were quite interesting as the city police, which was trying to trace out the trouble mongers along the Assam-Meghalaya border areas, received an input that a Maoist leader was holding meetings with Khasi boys in the bordering areas.
At the initial stages, no one was quite ready to believe that any senior leader of the Maoist rebels would be moving around in these areas but later the inputs were cross checked and a trap was laid. Rabha was arrested along with another Maoist cadre when they were waiting for the arrival of a few Khasi boys for their periodical meetings in the Jorabat area near the Assam-Meghalaya border.
However, the boys the Maoist leaders were waiting to meet could not be arrested as they did not turn up at the stipulated time. During initial questioning, Rabha admitted that with the militancy on the wane in Assam with a number of militant groups coming forward for political dialogue with the Government, the Maoists started making serious efforts to fill up the void and establish strong roots in Assam.
He admitted that the Maoists managed to penetrate into almost all the districts of the state and the recent focus was on the districts of Kamrup and Goalpara. The Maoists also tried to establish strong roots in Meghalaya and that is why Rabha was regularly meeting Khasi boys to try and win them over to the fold of the Maoists. The security agencies also believe that the Maoists are also in touch with Meghalaya, based militant group HNLC for some time.
Interestingly, the security agencies were aware of the fact that one person from Assam was in the central committee of the Maoists for some time, but as Rabha was well known as Maheshji in the organization, it took quite some time to the agencies to ascertain that he was the man who was one of the most wanted Maoist rebels. Both the arrested persons were remanded to police custody for 14 days today.
http://www.assamtribune.com/scripts/...=apr2813/at092


Manipur Maoist expands its operative strategy
Maoists in Manipur have expanded their operative system by adding another special region in addition to the existing four regions. A statement of the Maoist Communist Party Manipur signed by its publicity and propaganda secretary Comrade Nonglen Meitei said that the newly added Region 5 (special) would be led by Comrade N. Nganba Meitei as the regional bureau-in-charge.
“This newly added special region will take responsibility for only in the party building process,” the statement added. The statement further said that the Maoist understood the changing face of the “Indian colonial system” from time to time and the Maoist has been operating with maximum flexibility to counter any move to demoralize the proletarian revolutionary movement.
Saying that, it would be wrong to guest that people were against the revolutionary movement, the statement categorically stated that people were still supporting the freedom movement, citing the public response to the agitations for introduction of Inner Line Permit System, uprising against the killing of Thangjam Monorama and June 18 uprising as instances.
It further observed that people might get bored due to the facet of “yesterday’s” movement but it would not take long from reviving up if the movement was leading toward the right direction.
http://www.nagalandpost.com/ChannelN...oVCl4%2ferQ%3d


Maoists kill police informers
Unleashing fresh violence, Maoists killed two persons suspecting them to be police informers at Kiang village under Mathili police limits on Thursday. They also torched a cell-phone transmission tower in the village. Armed Maoists had abducted three villagers from Kiang village recently and killed two of them while releasing another Padmanav Pujari, Malkangiri SP Akhileswar Singh said.
The bodies of Gopi Pujari, a shop-keeper, and Hatiram Pujari were found on a forest road on Thursday morning with their throats slit. The bodies also bore gun-shot marks. While Gopi had been kidnapped from a village festival venue on April 19, the other two were abducted on April 22. The victims were suspected to have been killed on Wednesday night when over 50 armed Maoists had stormed into the area and set afire the tower of a private mobile phone service provider. Maoists from neighbouring Chhattisgarh are suspected to be behind the killing.
Following the incident, the borders with Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh have been sealed. Kiang village which shares its border with Chhattisgarh has turned into a safe hideout for the rebels who after committing crime in Odisha easily escape into the neighbouring district and vice-versa.
This is the third such incident in Malkangiri this year. On April 4, Maoists killed a village council chief in Kurmanur area of the district. Another man was killed by the rebels in a village close to Andhra Pradesh border on January 16.
http://newindianexpress.com/states/odisha/Maoists-kill-police-informers/2013/04/26/article1562351.ece


Seven alleged Maoists were killed in a gun battle with security forces in Jharkhand Monday, police said.
The shootout between the Maoists and the security forces, which included state police force and the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), took place in the Piri forest area of Latehar district, which is around 130 km from here. Three bodies of the Maoist rebels were recovered, but the rebels managed to escape with the bodies of four of their cadres, police claimed.
The shootout lasted for about five hours. Police also recovered an Insas rifle, two country-made rifles, mobile phones, medicines and other materials from the site of the gun battle.
http://www.business-standard.com/art...2900885_1.html


Nine Maoists held with arms in Motihari
MOTIHARI: The police arrested nine hardcore Maoists late Friday evening at Barhki Pakahi village under Lakhaura police station and recovered five rifles, three pistols and 43 rounds of ammunition, improvised explosive device (IED) and cylinder besides six police uniforms. East Champaran SP Vinay Kumar, while addressing a press conference at his office, said a police team led by ASP (operations) Sanjay Kumar Singh laid a trap in the area and arrested all nine Maoists, who were planning to unleash violence at the village to avenge the killing of Allah Paswan, who was recently killed by another Maoist faction.
“We had reports that they might take revenge and finally, they reached the village for the purpose,” the SP said. Two groups of CPI (Maoist) are reported to be at loggerheads over a plot in the area and six persons have been killed from both the sides during the last one year, he said. The ASP (operations) led a team of police officials including Pakaridayal DSP Harimohan Shukla and Sadar DSP Manoj Kumar who surrounded the area where the Maoists had assembled. The arrested Maoists included Harendra Paswan, Hari Paswan, Nanhak Mia, Jagat Paswan, Prem Paswan, Rudal Paswan and Vijendra Paswan. They are being interrogated.
http://articles.timesofindia.indiati...-team-motihari


BJP leader gunned down by Maoists in Chhattisgarh
Raipur, April 29 — Maoist militants gunned down a leader of Chhattisgarh’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in insurgency-hit Dantewada district Monday, police said. “Armed Maoists shot dead Shivdayal Tomar, 50, the vice-president of Dantewada district unit of BJP, at Kawad village when he was visiting an under-construction bridge,” said officials at the police headquarters here.
The killing has created terror in the district and the BJP as well as the opposition Congress condemned the incident and termed it a cowardly act. Police have launched a manhunt to track down the killers.
http://india.nydailynews.com/politic...n-chhattisgarh


People’s representatives resign en-mass in Malkangiri
Malkangiri: About 50 people’s representatives from the Maoist hotbed Kalimela block in Odisha’s Malkangiri district resigned en-mass on Monday in protest against lack of development in the tribal-dominated areas. “We have submitted our resignation at the office of the Kalimela block development officer as the district administration has failed to keep its promises,” said Deba Madhi, the chairperson of Kalimela block.
Besides Madhi, block vice-chairman Chaitanya Choudhury, many panchayat samiti members, gram panchayat sarpanchs and ward members also resigned. The local peoples represntatives had earlier demanded immediate construction of an irrigation canal between Manyakanda and Karkatapalli, drinking water, health service, education facilities, BPL cards for all poor and proper distribution of free houses under Indira Awas Yojana. Madhi said a delegation of peoples represntatives were earlier assured by the district administration that the government would soon take up construction of the canal.
“Though two months have passed no work has started for the canal,” Madhi said. Malkangiri district collector M Muthukar said he had heard of the incident but had not received any resignation letter. “The government will certainly take steps and discourage them from resigning,” he said. While the peoples representatives have denied any pressure from Maoists to resign, police said some of the local leaders irrespective of their party affiliations were asked to quit as they failed to implement the canal project.
http://zeenews.india.com/news/odisha...ri_845484.html


Explosives seized from Mundigaon forest
Berhampur/ROURKELA: Explosives, a firearm and other Maoist belongings were recovered from Mundigaon forest, near Katingia in Kandhamal district, police said on Sunday. “Two improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and a country-made pistol were seized during a joint combing operation,” said SP (Kandhamal) JN Pankaj. In another haul, at least 30 kgs of explosives were seized from Saranda forest range under K Balang police limits in Sundargarh district on Saturday.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/c...w/19779982.cms


Maoists kill private firm clerk
MUNGER: Close on the heels of the Maoist attack on the site of a construction company at Mahadev Sumaria village under Sikandra police station in Jamui district on Wednesday midnight, the extremists struck again late Thursday night at a village construction site under Barhat PS in the district and killed Priyachand Singh, clerk-cum-accountant of the construction company. Jamui SP Deepak Baranwal, confirming the incident, said the police team, in a joint operation with CRPF and SAP jawans, is conducting raids on the suspected hideouts of the extremists.
Barhat police said that over 20 Maoists attacked the site and killed the agency’s employee. The construction agency had started work for construction of a canal at Paithraha village under Barhat PS and work was on in full swing. The police said four vehicles including a tractor, a trekker and part of a roller-cum-lifting machine were burnt to ashes by the Maoists while departing from the site Thursday midnight.
The burnt trekker belonged to the slain employee of the construction agency, Barhat SHO Kaushal Kumar said. On the direction of the Jamui SP, SDPO Birendra Kumar and Inspector Kishori Mahto were leading the raiding teams to arrest the Maoists responsible for the employee’s murder and setting the vehicles afire.
Sources said the construction company’s refusal to pay the levy amount demanded by the Maoists led to the killing of its employee. Meanwhile, Maoists are yet to release two kidnapped employees of another construction company at Mahadev Sumaria village under Sikandra PS in Jamui district, Bhagwan Ram, an accountant, and night guard Amit Kumar, police said adding raids were on to secure their release. Sources said Maoists had asked the construction company to pay the balance amount of levy amounting to Rs 2 crore.
http://articles.timesofindia.indiati...jamui-district


Maoists kill two abducted tribals, torch cell tower
SEELERU (VISAKHAPATNAM): Maoists killed two of the three tribals who they abducted and torched a mobile phone tower at Kyang village under Mattili police station limits in Malkangiri district of Odisha, 70 km from here, late on Wednesday night. The extremists had abducted the three persons on Tuesday night from the village suspecting them to be police moles. Malkangiri SP Akhileswar Singh said, the Maoist outlaws set the third person, Podamal Pujari, a member of an NGO operating in the area, free.
But there is no official word from the Maoists yet on it. The deceased persons have been identified as Gopi Pujari alias Jyothy Pujari, a wine shop owner and Hatiram Pujari, a farmer. According to police sources, the three people were abducted by the Darba divisional committee squad, one of the committees operating on the Chhattisgarh-Odisha border. The Naxalites left the bodies of Gopi Pujari and Hatiram Pujari on a forest road after gunning them down. While there were rumours that the Maoists also slit the throats of their captives, sources said the bodies bore only gunshot wounds.
Maoists killed the two tribals as they suspected them of passing information to the police on their activities. They also left hand-written posters beside the dead bodies. The posters, released in the name of Darba divisional committee, claimed that it had given repeated warnings to the duo before “punishing” them. The poster also alleged that the slain tribals had not changed their attitude and continued to act as a “police agents.”
In another poster, the Maoists gave a call to the people to observe bandh in four states – Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Maharashtra – to protest the alleged encounter at Pamedu (Kanchala) forest where nine Naxalites were killed recently. Sources said that Gopi Pujari was kidnapped during a village festival on April 19. The other two were abducted on April 23. But the kidnapping came to light only on Wednesday.
The people of villages surrounding Kyang believe that the duo were killed by the armed Naxalites numbering over 50 after setting a cell tower in the same area on fire. Maoists stormed Kyang village late on Wednesday night and torched a mobile phone tower of a private service provider, SP Akhileswar Singh told mediapersons.
http://articles.timesofindia.indiati...maoists-pamedu


Police conduct searches
Police today conducted intense search operations in the forest area near Vazhikkadav in Malappuram district following reports of sighting of three unidentified persons, including an woman, in the early hours. According to police, three persons approached a Preliminary health Centre at Munda and sought medicines. When told that there was no doctor, they just left and the health centre staff immediately informed forest and police officials.
Police personnel including specially trained commando force of Kerala police,’Thunderbolt’, combed the area, they said. Earlier, last month, the specially trained commando force had conducted search operations in the Aralam and Kannavam forest areas in Kannur district, in the wake of reports of suspected Maoist presence in the forest areas bordering Kerala and Karnataka. Though the 30-member commando force along with forest department officials conducted search operations, they could not sight anyone.
http://www.business-standard.com/art...2700462_1.html

Source: http://www.signalfire.org/?p=24132

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Two Naxalites killed in encounter with security forces in Chhattisgarh
Two suspected Naxalites were killed in an encounter with troops of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and the State Police near Kachora vilalge in Chhote Donger police station area in Narayanpur district of Chhattisgarh today. A spokesman for the CRPF said that, based on a specific intelligence input, a joint special operation was carried out in the area from 0030 hours today by troops of 39 Battalion of the CRPF, 201 CoBRA and State Police. At about 0530 hours, when the troops reached near Kachora village, a fierece encounter took place between the Naxalites and the security forces, he said.
According to him, the encounter lasted for nearly 20 minutes. When the firing stopped and the area was searched, two bodies of suspected Naxalites, in unform, were recovered from the site of the encounter. The security forces also seized four guns, three hand grenades, four country-made hand grenades, four improvised explosive devices (IEDs), one Ak 47 magazine, one SLR magazine, 19 rounds of AK 47 ammunition and seven rounds of SLR ammunition, he said.
“The presence of more Naxal groups in the area in large number has been reported. Troops are searching the area,” the spokesman added.
http://netindian.in/news/2013/05/01/...s-chhattisgarh


Maoist arrested in Odisha
Phulbani (Odisha): A Maoist, allegedly involved in several offences including bomb blasts, was arrested by the security forces in Odisha’s Kandhamal district on Wednesday, police said. Mathews Bedbaka was picked from his hideout in Meragudi village at Kotagarh area during a joint combing by CRPF, district voluntary force and local police, Baliguda sub-divisional police officer (SDPO) Arjun Barik said.
Mathew, who hails from Rayagada district, had been active in Maoist activities and was suspected to be involved in an ambulance blast in Kandhamal in November 2010 in which five people were killed, police said. His involvement is also suspected in an explosion near Srirampur on January 5, 2012 in which three police personnel died, they said.
http://zeenews.india.com/news/odisha...ha_845864.html


Maoist Communist Party, Manipur on May Day
IMPHAL, April 30: The proscribed outfit Maoist Communist Party, Manipur Central Head Quarter has conveyed its message on the occasion of the May Day in a press release. The release has wished for the growth of the “Manipur Proletarian Revolution”, the foundation of which was laid by Lamyanba Hijam Irabot in Manipur.
The statement said according to several intellectuals, the first rally of the workers and farmers in Manipur was led by Lamyanba Hijam Irabot on the May Day of 1939 from Moirangkhom which had also passed through the residence of Political agent Jimson. Counting since the first rally, the day has been observed 74 times the statement said and added there is still no development or improvement in the condition of the farmers and workers.
http://kanglaonline.com/2013/04/maoi...ur-on-may-day/


The red sign over Assam
Assam may not be among states fighting a stiff battle against left-wing extremism yet, but Maoists definitely have a strong footing in the state now. The latest evidence is the arrest of two important functionaries of the CPI (Maoist) party from state capital Guwahati, both from a tribal community. For over a year now, Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi has been telling the Centre that at least seven districts of the state have figured on the Maoist map.
Gogoi had also pleaded with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to include these seven districts in the Integrated Action Plan so that the growth of left-wing extremists could be contained before it became a menace. In December, Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh too asked the Centre to declare at least two districts of Assam – Dibrugarh and Tinsukia – as Maoist-dominated. Central committee member Aklanta Rabha and Jharkhand “state trainer” Siraj Rabha — both from the Rabha community which had figured in the clashes in Goalpara — arrested last Friday, in fact are the latest among important Maoist functionaries held in the state over the past two years.
Others include Indranil Chanda, Ana-nd Kharwar, Pijush Kanti Acharjee and Aditya Bora, top names in the CPI (Maoist) hierarchy. Already fighting numerous insurgent and armed groups, Assam has been on the Maoist radar for a long time, with Kishenji having called for a cordial relationship with the Northeast outfits at least four years ago. Aklanta Rabha was once part of a now defunct group called the Rabha Protection Force that he had himself founded in 1991, and a sizeable section of the 180-odd Maoist cadres in Assam are said to have been with the ULFA or some other group before switching over to the CPI(Maoist). Most of these cadres, who also include several women, come from the backward districts of the state including those that share inter-state boundary with neighbouring states, with the common factor between the regions being disparities in development.
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/th...ssam/1109960/0


Soni Sori, Kodopi acquitted of murder charges
Soni Sori, the tribal school teacher accused of acting as a courier between Essar Steel and the outlawed Communist Party of India (Maoist), and Lingaram Kodopi, the activist-journalist trained in Delhi, have been acquitted in one more crucial case by Dantewada court. The case filed in 2010 by Dantewada police alleged that Ms Sori and Lingaram Kodopi are among several others involved in planning and executing an attack on local Congress leader, Avdesh Singh Gautam, in which two persons were killed.
15 others, including activists of various mainstream political parties, who were booked with Ms Sori were also acquitted. Congress leader Vijay Sodi, CPI leader Lala Ram Kunjam and a Panchayat member of Dantewada, Sannuram Mandawi are among the accused who got acquitted on Wednesday.
Soni Sori has now been acquitted in six out of eight cases filed against her. A FIR filed in Kuakonda police station in Dantewada court said that on 7 July, 2010 midnight, more than 150 Maoist soldiers attacked local Congress leader and contractor Avdesh Singh Gautam’s house. Mr Gautam’s brother in law, Sanjay Singh and house attendant Dharmendra were killed, while his son and a guard were injured. 17 accused, including Ms Sori and Mr Kodopi, were present at the scene of crime, said Mr Gautam, according to the FIR.
On basis of available evidences and witness’ statements several charges were brought against the accused under Indian Penal Code, Arms Act and Explosive Substance Act which includes criminal conspiracy, rioting, arson causing death, and attempt to murder, besides a host of other allegations. “Due to lack of enough and proper evidence additional sessions Judge Anita Dehariya acquitted Soni Sori, Lingaram Kodopi and others,” said Ms Sori’s lawyer in Dantewada K K Dubey on phone.
In February, this year, Ms. Sori was acquitted in two other cases. One in which, she was accused to have opened fire and used explosives to blow up vehicles of Essar Steel. In another, she was accused of firing on police near Essar Beneficiation Plant in Kirandul. “Witnesses could not confirm her involvement,” Mr. Dubey told The Hindu earlier. Last year, Ms. Sori was acquitted in two more cases. Two more cases against Ms Sori are still in court.
One of the allegations, pending in Bacheli court, accused Ms Sori of torching several vehicles. In the other case – the most crucial one – pending in Dantewada court, it is alleged that Ms Sori and Mr Kodopi were planning to hand over “protection money” from Essar Steel to the Maoists. D.V.C.S. Verma, the general manager at an Essar steel plant, and B.K. Lala, one of Essar’s contractors, were arrested in the same case, allegedly for disbursing money.
According to police, Mr. Kodopi and Ms. Sori were carrying the money to the rebels. While Ms Sori and Mr Kodopi are languishing in jail, like thousands of tribal under trials (UTs) of south Chhattisgarh, two of their co-accused, Mr Verma and Mr Lala, got bail soon within months after the arrest.
90 per cent cases against tribals are concocted
Ashok Jain, a senior lawyer of Dantewada, representing some of the accused, who got acquitted with Ms Sori, said Wednesday’s judgement proves how tribals are detained under “false charges.” “These tribals are detained under completely concocted charges, at least most of them. Their families get ruined as they spend several years as undertrials. Whenever the cases are followed well, like the case of Soni Sori, the accused gets acquitted,” Mr Jain said.
A battery of lawyers representing the high profile case of Ms Sori and other accused feel, while the case of Soni Sori or Dr Binayak Sen got enough “attention from all quarters,” cases of thousands of undertrial tribals are getting “absolutely no attention from media or civil society.” “Most of these cases are so flimsy that higher courts may not even admit those or the accused will get bail within hours of admission. But lack of financial and people’s support, keep these tribals behind bars for years,” said one of the lawyers.
“How can a poor tribal be arrested for just being a resident of an area controlled by the Maoists or sharing a lunch with the rebels, possibly under duress,” said another lawyer. Ms Sori’s lawyers, however, sounded optimistic and said they have moved a bail petition in Chhattisgarh High Court. “I hope, Ms Sori and others will get bail soon after this acquittal in a crucial case,” said Mr Dubey.
http://www.thehindu.com/news/nationa...cle4673791.ece

Source: http://www.signalfire.org/?p=24143

[Brutus]

How much support do the Maoists have?

[TheGodlessUtopian]

How much support do the Maoists have?

They have a presence in about 1/3 of India so all one needs to do is some simple math to understand that the network required to upkeep, defend, and expand this network is large and numbers in the (estimated) millions (including supporters, sympathizers, militia, Party members, etc).

Also, please keep in mind this thread is for news only; if you have a question pertaining to the Naxalites feel free to PM me or ask around in the MLM group.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Chhattisgarh HC reserves verdict on Naxal’s bail
Bilaspur: The Chhattisgarh High Court has reserved its judgement on the bail application of Malti alias K S Priya, who was convicted for her alleged involvement in Naxal activities. Earlier a lower court had awarded her 10 years imprisonment. “The single bench of Justice R S Sharma on Thursday reserved its judgement on the bail plea of Malti, who was arrested in 2008 for her alleged involvement in naxal activities,” her counsel Satish Verma said.
In 2006, Naxal literature and CDs were distributed at the MLA rest house in Raipur through courier. Around two years after the incident, police had busted an urban Naxal network and had arrested Malti along with three others – Surendra Kosaria, Siddharth Sharma and Pratik Jha – on February 22, 2008 in this connection. After hearing the case, a district court had convicted Malti and Surendra and sentenced them to 10 year in jail while two others were acquitted.
Challenging the decision of the district court, Malti later filed an appeal in the High Court along with an application for the suspension of the sentence and grant of bail. After hearing the arguments of Malti’s counsel, the court reserved its verdict. PTI
http://zeenews.india.com/news/chhatt...il_846234.html

Jailed Naxal leader Kobad Gandhy moves Delhi HC for bail
Naxal leader Kobad Ghandy, who was arrested and jailed for allegedly setting up a base for the banned CPI(Maoist), has moved a an application at Delhi High Court seeking bail on the grounds that he has already been granted the same relief by Andhra Pradesh High Court in a case. Sixty five-year-old Ghandy, who was arrested on September 20, 2009 by the Special Cell of Delhi Police, filed a copy of the bail order delivered by the AP High Court before Justice Sunil Gaur.
The court, which had earlier issued a notice to Delhi Police on the bail application of Ghandy, on Thursday, however, deferred the hearing to May 16 after the counsel for the police said he was not prepared to argue. Ghandy’s advocate Rebecca John placed on record the order of the AP High Court, which granted him bail in a case of killing of nine persons, including senior Congress leader Chittem Narsi Reddy, in the southern state.
Reddy and eight others were allegedly killed by the Maoists in Narayanapet in Mahbubnagar on August 15, 2005. Ghandy has been booked by Delhi Police under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and IPC for a series of offences, which includes impersonation, cheating and forgery.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/India-...1-1053944.aspx

Beleaguered Maoists step up expansion programme
Maoists have stepped up their expansion drive in western Odisha and the trijunction of Karnataka-Tamil Nadu-Kerala, a latest assessment by the ministry of home affairs (MHA) has revealed. “The sustained campaign against Naxals in their strongholds of Sukma, Bijapur and Narayanpur in Chhaittisgarh, Gadchiroli of Maharashtra and Saranada forest of Jharkhand has forced the Maoists to expand in new areas,” said a senior security officer.
According to the assessment, Maoists are pushing in the western Odisha districts of Bolangir, Bargarh, Naupada and Nabarangpur. They also held a large meeting in Pardarha village of Naupada, which was attended by their four central committee members. Besides Odisha, Maoists have been trying to new front in area around tri-junction of Karanataka-Kerala-Tamil Nadu for the last many years. The security forces have seen renewed Maoist activities in this region this year.
The MHA assessment also shows that in the first three months of the current year more Maoists have been killed in comparison to the security personnel than in the same period in last year. In the first three months of last year, 53 security personnel had been killed, while the figure for Naxals killed in clashes with the security forces and their own breakaway factions stood at 20.
But in 2013, in the first three months ending March 31, only 25 securitymen lost their lives in anti-Naxal operations whereas 30 Maoist were killed clashes with the security forces and breakaway factions like Tritiya Sammelan Prastuti Committee.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/India-...1-1053984.aspx

Suspected Maoist Sontakke is denied bail
Observing that even the rights guaranteed by the Constitution, specifically freedom of speech and expression and right to life and liberty, are subject to reasonable restrictions, the Bombay High Court recently rejected suspected Maoist Angela Sontakke’s bail application. Justice Satyaranjan Dharmadhikari also observed that Sontakke’s case cannot be held at par with her six co-accused, who have been granted bail by a different judge.
The case pertains to seven arrests made by Maharashtra Anti Terrorism Squad from Thane and Pune last April. It was alleged that the accused were part of Golden Corridor Committee, a group set up by the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist), to spread its message in urban areas. Sontakke is suspected to be the secretary of this committee and her husband Milind Teltumbde, who is absconding, is said to be a top state CPI (Maoist) operative. ATS had allegedly recovered cash, CDs, pen drives and printed material supposedly used to spread the committee’s message.
Making prima facie observations against Sontakke, Justice Dharmadhikari noted in his order that she seemed to be an active member of the banned organisation. “She seems to be a member of the Regional Committee and also Golden Corridor Committee, both of which are part of the banned organisation. She is not just a nominal member,” observed the court.
Further, accepting Special Public Prosecutor Rohini Salian’s arguments, the court also observed, “She does not merely subscribe to the ideology but actively promotes and propounds it. Her acts would fall within the provisions relied upon by the prosecution and to be found in the provisions of Unlawful Activities Prevention Act.” Advocate Sudeep Pasbola, representing Sontakke, had argued that her case would not fall beyond mere passive membership of the banned organistation.
He submitted that even if the prosecution’s case is found to be true, Sontakke could be sentenced only under sections providing imprisonment of five to seven years. Pasbola also cited two bail orders of Sontakke’s six co-accused, both given by Justice Abhay Thipsay. Two of them were granted bail in October last year, when Justice Thipsay had observed that every person influenced by Maoist ideology cannot be treated as member of a terrorist organisation.
Four others were granted bail in January this year. Justice Thipsay had then observed that raising issues like “social inequality” was not banned and hence was not punishable. Justice Dharmadhikari overruled all these submissions. The court relied on confessional statement of one of the accused and yet another witness – a freelance journalist, cited by the prosecution. The freelance journalist had narrated his story about how he was taken to a forest area for three weeks and was shown around the activities of banned organisation in detail and was almost persuaded to join the organistation, but he chose not to.
http://www.mumbaimirror.com/mumbai/c...w/19827351.cms

Red terror camps in 7 Maoist-infested states worry government
The Union Ministry of Home Affairs has raised concern over naxal terror training camps organised to impart military training for new recruits and planning of special operations against security forces in at least seven Maoist infested States. The banned outfit bastion in Dandakaranya forest region extending over an area of 92,300 sq.km had held maximum number of camps in the last one year.
The camps were organised in Sukma, Bijapur, Dantewada, Narayanpur and Kanker district in Chhattisgarh and Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra. “In 2012, 26 training camps were reportedly organised in these districts. During the current year, till April 15, six such training camps have been reportedly organised in these districts,” Minister of State for Home Affairs RPN Singh told Lok Sabha on Tuesday. Singh said these training camps were an important component of the overall military tactics of the CPI (Maoist).
Similar camps are organised in other left wing extremists affected states, including Odisha, Jharkhand and West Bengal. Maoists refer to the area as Compact Revolutionary Zone (CRZ) in their military literature. In the last one year, 14 training camps for ultras were organised in Jharkhand followed by 8 camps in Odisha. In order to dismantle Maoist military camps, State and paramilitary forces have launched intensified intelligence-based naxal operations.
Recently, on March 23, a special task force had busted a training camp in Narayanpur district of Chhattisgarh. A total of 589 arms were recovered by security forces from various training camps in 2012. Maoists have established various temporary arms production units in the States of Andhra, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, Bihar and Maharashtra. These mobile units are entrusted to manufacture artillery, rifle parts and booby traps. “The Central government, wherever required, assists States by providing Central Armed Police Forces and by sharing intelligence inputs in such matters,” Singh said.
Meanwhile, two Naxals were killed on Wednesday in an encounter with security forces in Maoist-hit Narayanpur district of Chhattisgarh. The cadres of Daula Dalam of Maoists were gunned down by a joint team of COBRA battalion, CRPF and district force in the jungle of Kachora village in the wee hours, Narayanpur Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) NK Sahu said. In Raipur, two Naxals were killed in an encounter with security forces in Maoist-hit Narayanpur district of Chhattisgarh, police said. The cadres of Daula Dalam of Maoists were gunned down by a joint team of COBRA battalion, CRPF and district force in the jungle of Kachora village in the wee hours, Narayanpur DSP NK Sahu said.
http://newindianexpress.com/nation/R...cle1570871.ece

Maoists make Assam inroads
The CPI (Maoist) has succeeded in making strong inroads in Assam with security agencies confirming the presence of nearly 40 armed cadres who were trained in two separate training camps — first in Jharkhand and second in the frontier state of Arunachal Pradesh.
Disclosing that CPI (Maoist) has also roped in at least 150 overground hardcore workers, propagating Maoist ideology among the youths in Assam, authoritative security sources told this newspaper that Akalanta Rabha alias Maheshji who was arrested recently had also succeeded in establishing link with some Khasi youths in Meghalaya with the help of a woman activists. Asserting that security agencies have got concrete evidence on training camps of CPI (Maoist) cadres in Arunachal Pradesh, security sources said that Prakant Bose, heading the eastern bureau of CPI (Maoist) was looking after the activities of the outfit in the northeast from Jharkhand.
Pointing out that Maheshiji who hails from Goalpara in Assam was not active for quite some time and wanted his release from the organisation, security sources said that Prakant Bose motivated him to start recruitment of new cadres and assigned task of strengthening the organisation in Assam and Meghalaya.
Before joining the CPI (Maoist) in 1996-97, Maheshji was also the secretary of All Rabha Students Union in the state. Maheshji who was also getting salary from its central committee for himself and his supporting staff cadres, was also doing a business of direct trading of consumer products.
In the process he met a Khasi woman who not only got influenced by his ideology but also invited for a meeting with local youths in villages bordering Assam in Meghalaya. However, before his meeting, police arrested him. Security sources referring the investigation of the security agencies said that CPI (Maoist) had signed an agreement with Peoples Liberation Army of Manipur for arms supply but off late they had started targeting the sophisticated weapons in possession of other militant outfits in Assam.
http://www.asianage.com/india/maoist...am-inroads-783

Source: http://www.signalfire.org/?p=24158

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Maoists abduct 3 more in Malkangiri district
KORAPUT: Continuing their well-calibrated offensive against suspected police informers, Maoists abducted at least three persons, including an elected panchayat representative, in Malkangiri district. Though the incident occurred on Wednesday night, police confirmed it on Friday, coinciding with the visit of director general of police (DGP) Prakash Mishra to the Maoist-hit district. Earlier on April 24, Maoists killed two of the three persons they had abducted on April 22 from Kiang panchayat under Mathili police limits in the district.
In the latest incident, sources said a group of armed Maoists swooped down on Mahupadar village, situated at a distance of about 100 km from Malkangiri town, under Mathili police limits, and abducted the naib sarpanch of Mahupadar Budu Durua, a trader identified as Budu Naik and another villager Malsa Kalra, accusing them of helping police. Brushing aside the Maoist charges against the victims, Malkangiri SP Akhileswar Singh said, “The abducted persons were never our informers. The Maoists might have abducted them to settle some personal scores.
Due to the remoteness of the village in the Odisha-Chhattisgarh border, we are facing difficulty in getting the details of the incident. However, investigation is on.” Police suspect the involvement of Daharba division of the CPI (Maoist) in the abduction, which operates in the Odisha-Chhattisgarh border areas. At least six persons have been abducted by Maoists in the past 15 days, leaving the villagers panic-stricken.
“Local people are spending sleepless nights as Maoists are constantly on the prowl. No one knows what will be the fate of the abducted trio. Also, the remoteness of the villages helps the Maoists to have a free run in the area,” said a source at Mathili. Meanwhile, the DGP visited Red-hit Chitrakonda and assessed the ongoing anti-Naxalite operations in Malkangiri district with top district police and BSF officials.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/c...w/19875269.cms

Two Naxals held in Chhattisgarh
Raipur, May 4 (PTI) Two Naxals were arrested during a joint search operation in a jungle in Maoist-hit Bijapur district of Chhattisgarh, police said today. “The cadres were nabbed from the jungles of Batumpali village under Basaguda police station area of the district by the joint contingent of CRPF and district force last night,” a senior official told PTI over phone.
http://www.ptinews.com/news/3607184_...n-Chhattisgarh

Source: http://www.signalfire.org/?p=24175

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Reds kill one of three abductees in Malkangiri
KORAPUT: A day after DGP Prakash Mishra assessed the ongoing anti-Naxalite operations in Malkangiri district, Maoists murdered one of the three kidnapped persons and freed the other two in the district on Saturday. The deceased has been identified as naib sarpanch of Mahupadar panchayat Budu Durua. The rebels freed the other two abductees, Budu Naik and Malsa Kalra, with threats of dire consequences if they dared to help police in the area.
According to sources, villagers spotted the body of Durua lying in a pool of blood near the school at Mahupadar on Saturday morning. “A group of Maoists went to the village around 2 am and held a praja court prior to murdering the naib sarpanch,” said a source at Mathili. Police said security personnel are facing problems in reaching the village as the Naxals have dug roads at various points and dug at least three trenches between Mathili and Mahupadar. Malkangiri SP Akhileswar Singh said the deceased was not a police informer.
“The Maoists have murdered him for some other reason which is under investigation. These are desperate attempts by the Maoists to instill fear among the local villagers,” the SP said. “The two villagers freed by the Maoists are in a state of shock and are not willing to say anything at the moment,” he added. Police suspects the involvement of Dharaba division of the CPI (Maoist) in the incident, which operates in Odisha-Chhattisgarh border.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/C...w/19890990.cms


Democracy has collapsed in Naxal-hit Malkangiri: Cong
Bhubaneswar: Congress on Sunday alleged that democracy has collapsed at the grassroot level in Maoist-hit Malkangiri following the en-mass resignation of over 60 Panchayati Raj representatives and asked the BJD government to expedite developmental work in the district. “Over 60 PRI representatives in Kalimela block had resigned en-mass last month over government’s inaction in completing an irrigation canal and providing basic amenities like drinking water,” Odisha PCC President Niranjan Patnaik, who visited the district yesterday, told reporters here.
“We are shocked at the callousness of Naveen Patnaik government towards the collapse of this vital grassroots institution. We are shocked to note that the government has not even responded to this crisis and treating it as a casual event. PRIs are an important part of our constitutional edifice,” the PCC chief said.
He said not even a minister or a secretary-level officer had visited the district to talk to the PRI representatives. “Nothing can be more insensitive.” He said children in the district are dying of diseases, while its youth are unemployed, women vulnerable and farmers lack access to irrigation. “We feel there is an atmosphere of acute bedlam and unprecedented institutional decay.”
“The Malkangiri misery is being perpetuated by the insensitivity, inaction and neglect of the BJD government in the state,” he said and asked the government to create infrastructure, provide jobs to the people and integrate them to the mainstream. Rs 1100 crore meant for schemes like Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) were lying unutilised in Malkangiri, Patnaik said, adding the district fares poorly on all development indicators, besides reporting poor utilisation of central funds under different schemes. PTI
http://zeenews.india.com/news/odisha...ng_846650.html


Elected representatives under Naxal threat
RAIPUR: Police have stepped up security of elected representatives in Sarguja division, in north Chhattisgarh bordering Jharkhand, following intelligence inputs about the possibility of Maoists targeting them.
“We are on alert and adequate security cover is being provided to them”, said inspector general of police (Sarguja range) T J Longkumer in Jashpur on Friday after a joint meeting of senior officials of Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and state police to review the strategy for anti-Naxalite operation on Chhattisgarh-Jharkhand border. CRPF’s IG M N Rao said the meeting of police officials of both the states was convened at Jashpur to formulate joint strategy to deal with the Naxalite activities in the region.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/c...w/19890799.cms

Insurgencies In India’s Northeast Demonstrating Signs And Intent Of Staging Comeback – Analysis
The premature claims by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) in its Annual Report for the year 2006-07 that the overall violence in the northeast “has been contained” notwithstanding, the region’s rendezvous with insurgency and instability continued much longer.
Till the newly installed Awami League (AL) Government in Dhaka decided in 2009 to put a halt to the country’s tolerance of the activities of Indian insurgents on its soil, insurgency continued full steam, thwarting New Delhi’s twin efforts of pushing foreign governments in Bhutan, Bangladesh and Myanmar to cooperate with its own counter-insurgency operations at home.
However, three years since this momentous and landmark cooperation from Bangladesh that should have reduced the insurgents to tatters, insurgency movements in the northeast live on, albeit weak and a poor caricature of their former selves, yet demonstrating signs and intent of making a comeback.
Ineffectual policies that make central forces the backbone of counter-insurgency operations are at the core of such failures. The MHA, in its year-end report for the year 2011, asserted, “There has been significant decline in the incidents of violent killings of the civilians and the security forces in the North Eastern States due to the consistent efforts by Ministry of Home Affairs.” While the MHA’s actual contribution to the decline in violence levels can be a contentious issue, insurgency-induced violence has indeed hit the bottom.
Compared to 2007, the year which witnessed killing of 498 civilians and 79 security force personnel in the northeast, security situation in the region has improved significantly to record 97 civilian and 14 security force fatalities in 2012. Lest this be construed as a tactical retreat by the insurgent outfits, almost all the major outfits in the region had been reduced to a state of weakness.
The United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA)’s anti-talk faction, reduced to cadre strength of less than 150, had to find sanctuary in Myanmar. From being one of the most potent outfits in Manipur, much of United National Liberation Front (UNLF)’s action plan, following its chairman R K Meghen’s arrest in Bangladesh, veered around preserving its cadres. By the end of 2011, the Northeast appeared on a road to complete recovery and the days of insurgency, once seen as everlasting, appeared numbered.
The then Home Minister P Chidambaram predicted a “final settlement of the issues” in December 2010 and a more circumspect “ebbing of insurgency” a year later. Insurgencies, by no means, were dead in this frontier, but certainly were on deathbeds, creating thereby significant opportunities for the police forces in the region to consolidate their hold over the hitherto no-go areas.
On the contrary what continued were the old tactics — combination of alarmist assessments of the state of insurgencies by the governments of the day and a lackadaisical approach at enabling the police to take charge of the overall situation. For the region’s political class, to give up on the central forces, notwithstanding the latter’s negligible contribution to the transformed state of affairs, remained an impossible dream.
The prospect of the return of peace appeared to be bad news for the political class, for it could bring in new responsibilities. Carrying on with the narrative of instability, on the other hand, has been far more convenient. Several questions relating the counter-insurgency strategies remain unasked and unanswered in the northeast.
Why a situation of declining violence, when the cadre strength and consequent nuisance potential of the insurgents have declined to record low levels, cannot be handled by the police forces? Why have the MHA’s police modernisation programme with allocations running into Rupees 1690 crores between 2000 and March 2013, consistently failed to augment policing capabilities in the northeast?
If indeed there is a method to the fascination of the Chief Ministers of northeastern states to continue projecting a “conflict-affected” rather than a “conflict- free” status for their states, why can’t the Army, with all its reservations against involvement in the Maoist theatres and opposition to the dilution of the controversial Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, has not made any unilateral effort to extricate itself from the northeast’s conflict theatres?
Not surprisingly, riding on such persistent disinclination to launch police-led initiatives, the ULFA has been able to cast both its violence profile and extortion abilities far beyond the upper Assam districts in the proximity of Myanmar into districts abutting state capital Dispur. Dismissed previously as a miniscule faction reduced to irrelevance, it has managed to revive itself into what the Assam governor described in February 2013 as a “force to reckon with”.
In 2012, 357 ULFA cadres were arrested and 16 were killed in encounters. Yet the cadre strength of this faction led by Paresh Baruah has increased to over 250, underlining the irrelevance of the continuing peace talks with the pro-talks factions. A similar story has unfolded in Manipur. Major insurgent outfits have managed to thwart the prophecies of doom by forming an umbrella organisation, the CorCom (Coordination Committee) and continuing sporadic violence. The Garo Hills of Meghalaya, the erstwhile transit route for the insurgents between Bangladesh and Assam, has again become active.
With no end to the Naga conflict in sight, not only the Nagaland state continues to be a theatre of internecine warfare, abduction and extortion but problems routinely spill over into neighbouring Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh. More importantly, beyond these narratives on the big and influential among the armed factions, smaller outfits have mushroomed in the region, filling up the vacuum left open by the larger outfits.
The localised and yet all pervasive activities of the Santhal Tiger Force, Karbi People’s Liberation Tigers, Bodoland Royal Tigers Force, United Tribal Liberation Army et al, combining extortion, arms smuggling and abductions, is not captured by these profusely comforting figures of 111 civilian and security force deaths in 2012. In the last week of April 2013, Assam Police arrested a central committee member of the Communist Party of India-Maoist in Assam.
Each incident of this nature on earlier occasions has been used by Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi to demand additional battalions of central forces for the state. Such pathological dependence on central forces could find a potential facilitator in this year’s parliamentary elections in Bangladesh. Victory for the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) may very well put north-eastern insurgency on a path to recovery. New Delhi then can be left ruing the undoing of a job half done.
http://www.eurasiareview.com/0505201...back-analysis/

Source: http://www.signalfire.org/?p=24184

[TheGodlessUtopian]

“Ensure speedy trial of tribals accused of being Naxals”
Eminent personalities and activists, including Justice V R Krishna Iyer and historian Ramachandra Guha, today appealed to the government to ensure a speedy trial of tribals, who are accused of being Naxals or helping them. In an open letter, they said the failure to ensure justice for adivasis is a grave blot on India’s human rights record.
“Not only are we as a nation committed to democracy and human rights but our Constitution provides extensive safeguards and rights to the adivasis that are being violated by not ensuring fair and speedy trials for these thousands of adivasi undertrials. “On every count – whether humanitarian or strategic – it is imperative that this prolonged failure to assure our country’s adivasis of speedy, impartial justice be set right immediately,” they said. Releasing the letter here, activist Swami Agnivesh told reporters that urgent and dedicated measures under noted jurists were now needed to hear all these cases.
“Sentence those who are guilty and release the innocents, while compensating them for the damage they have undergone,” he said. Agnivesh said as per the replies he has received after filing Right To Information on the imprisonment of adivasis, 1,266 tribals were arrested after being accused of involving in Maoist activities in Naxal-hit states of Chhattisgarh, West Bengal and Bihar. The district of Dantewara in Chhattisgarh alone has 377 cases where arrests are made solely on Maoists charge, he claimed.
http://www.business-standard.com/art...0600819_1.html


Maoist held in Bihar
A hardcore Maoist was arrested today from a village in Rafiganj area in Bihar’s Aurangabad district, a senior police official said. Acting on a tip off, the police raided a house in Kauwakhat village and arrested Chhotu Rajak, who claimed himself to be the “area commander” of the naxal outfit outfit, Sub-Divisional Police Officer (SDPO) Ajay Narayan Yadav said. A rifle looted from the policemen, a cane bomb and naxal literature were recovered from the ultra, he said. Rajak was wanted in several incidents of naxal violence in the district, Yadav said.
http://www.business-standard.com/art...0600722_1.html


Red bid to strike cops foiled, 5 IEDs recovered
RANCHI: Maoists’ bid to blow up a police patrolling party in Red-hit Chatra district was foiled on Sunday with security men recovering five powerful improvised explosive devices (IEDs) planted beneath a road. The explosives were planted apparently to take revenge of the killing of 10 Maoist cadres on March 28. The rebels claim that the Maoists were killed by Tritiya Prastuti Committee members under the police patronage. The IEDs, each containing 10 kg explosives, were recovered from underneath a pitch road at Lenjua village in Hunterganj police station at 9am.
The rebels had dug out the road and stashed the explosives. “The detonator wires connected to the five devices with a circuit which was kept 30 metres away into the jungles,” said Chatra SP Anoop Birtharay. One IED, weighing 20 kg, can easily blow up an anti-landmine vehicle. Together the explosives were enough to blow up one company of security forces.
“The explosives were planted so tactfully that the bomb disposal squad of the CRPF took around eight hours to diffuse them. The wire connection of the explosives was destroyed first. It was dug out then and the explosive were defused safely in the fields,” said the SP. The village from where the explosives were recovered is the last village under the jurisdiction of Jharkhand police. The rebels are active in the area and they get support from their carders from Bihar.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/C...w/19906457.cms


Maoist kills one of three abductees in Malkangiri
Malkangiri, May 05 (ANI): Acting with brazen impunity Maoists have murdered one of the three persons they had kidnapped and released the other two in Malkangiri district of Odisha. The deceased has been identified as Naib Sarpanch of Mahupadar panchayat Buduram Dharua. Body of Dharua was found with his throat slit on a forest road on the outskirts of the village.
http://www.indiablooms.com/VideoDeta...ils060513w.php

Source: http://www.signalfire.org/?p=24203

[TheGodlessUtopian]

CRPF deployed in Naxal-affected states: R.P.N. Singh
New Delhi, May 7(ANI): Minister of State for Home R.P.N. Singh has informed that the Union Government has deployed Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs), including Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) in the LWE-affected states to assist the state police in conducting anti-naxal operations.
“The deployment of CAPFs (including CRPF) is a dynamic process and is based on requirements projected by the State Governments, availability of Force and the security situation in a particular location. The deployment of CAPFs (including CRPF) keeps changing from time to time.
However, at present a total number of 532 coys of CAPFs have been deployed in the LWE affected States,” said Singh in written reply to a question by R. Thamaraiselvan in the Lok Sabha today. Singh further said some of the LWE affected States including Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Odisha have demanded additional battalions of CAPFs, including CRPF.
“As stated above, the decision on deployment of additional battalion in the LWE affected States is taken on the basis of requirement of the State Governments, availability of Force and other ground realities. Recently, taking into consideration the requests of the State Governments, a decision has been taken by the Ministry of Home Affairs to provide 10 additional battalions of CAPFs including 05 battalions of CRPF to Jharkhand, Odisha, Bihar and Chhattisgarh,” he added. (ANI)
http://www.newstrackindia.com/newsde...P-N-Singh.html


Naxals manufacturing improvised grenades, RPGs: Government
NEW DELHI: Naxals are manufacturing improvised hand grenades and rocket propelled grenades (RPGs) in their arms manufacturing units, Lok Sabha was informed today. Minister of State for Home RPN Singh said as per reports available, the improvised grenades are manufactured by CPI (Maoist) in their stronghold areas of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Bihar.
He said some of the steps taken to bust these manufacturing units include ban on CPI(Maoist), deployment of forces at strategic locations, firm police action against such unlawful activities and intensified intelligence-based anti-Naxal operations. “Besides, the central government closely monitors the situation and issues advisories to the Left Wing Extremism- affected state governments to keep a check on such activities,” he said.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/...w/19929290.cms


Maoists blow up Panchayat building in Odisha
Malkangiri (Odisha): Maoists blew up a Panchayat building in Odisha’s Malkangiri district, in an apparent bid to scuttle an anti-Naxal operation. The police on Tuesday said about 60 armed Maoists and their supporters stormed into Kiang around midnight last night and broke open the doors of the two-storeyed building before triggering the blast using powerful explosives.
However, no one was injured in the incident though office documents were damaged even as fear-stricken people preferred to remain indoors. Malkangiri Superintendent of Police Akhileswar Singh said that an investigation was being conducted into the incident and the extent of the damage was being assessed.
No complaint has been filed by the panchayat authorities in this connection, he said. Ultras from neighbouring Chhattisgarh rule the roost in the district often terrorising people besides creating hurdles before the security forces in carrying out anti-Naxal operations. As different buildings, including those belonging to panchayats are generally used for accommodating security forces during anti-Maoist operations, the red rebels often target these structures, sources said. In the last one month they had kidnapped at least six persons from Kiang and adjoining Mahupadar panchayat areas suspecting them to be police informers and killed three of them. PTI
http://zeenews.india.com/news/odisha...ha_847021.html
Maoist leader arrested in Odisha
Bhubaneswar, May 7 (IANS) An area commander of the outlawed Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) was arrested in Odisha’s Rayagada district Tuesday, police said. Gameli China Mohan Rao, 25, is an area committee member of Koraput-Srikakulam Joint Division of the CPI-Maoist. He was involved in 13 murder cases, a district police official told IANS. Rao had joined the Maoists in 2007. He was arrested during an anti-Maoist operation.
He was also involved in the kidnapping of ruling Biju Janata Dal legislator Jhina Hikaka in March last year, the official said. Several arms and ammunition, including a Belgium-made pistol, 16 bullets and three kg of ammonium nitrate were seized from him, he added. The district headquarters of Rayagada is about 390 km from state capital Bhubaneswar.
http://www.newstrackindia.com/newsdetails/2013/05/07/377–Maoist-leader-arrested-in-Odisha-.html


Maoists plan to form women’s group foiled
GUWAHATI: The plan of Maoists to form a women’s group in Assam has been hit after police succeeded to arrest top Maoist leader Aklanta Rabha’s wife Rekha Rani Raha alias Sonpahi in Goalpara recently. Assam Police had arrested Aklanta, the sole central committee member from the state and Siraj Rabha, an arms trainer of the Reds, on April 26. Subsequently, the operations wing of the state police arrested Rekha and two other women Maoist cadres from Goalpara district.
“Rekha revealed that she was acting as an overground member of CPI (Maoist). She had formed an organization called Nari Mukti Sangha to fight against social discrepancy towards backward classes and was propagating the Maoist ideology among women in particular. She confessed that she had managed to recruit at least seven to eight women Maoist cadres in Goalpara and Kamrup districts,” said a policeman.
The state police’s Special Operation Wing (SOW), which has booked the rebels in an extortion case, is currently quizzing them. Police said Rekha went to West Bengal in 2005 and then to Jharkhand for training. During the same time, she got married to Aklanta Rabha. Later, coming back to Assam, she started her organizational activities at Krishnapur and Boko areas of Goalpara district. Settled in Goalpara in 2012, she started a tea stall near the Bhalukdubi area from where she started to form the women’s group via the Nari Mukti Sangha. Police recovered several letters from her possession that contain information about Maoist activities.
Assam Police’s task force, which was formed to deal with the growing Maoist activities, said at least 181 Maoists cadres are active in the state. “Out of them, 23 are women. However, most of them are political workers and not armed cadres,” said Assam police IGP L R Bishnoi, a member of the task force. Investigation revealed that Aklanta was the main facilitator for Maoists and served as a conduit for procuring sophisticated arms from across the border.
He was arrested with a .22 pistol and huge cache of ammunition. “Security forces had encounters with Red rebels on five occasions in Assam. We found sophisticated arms like AK rifles and carbines from them. The Maoists are getting latest arms through ultras in Manipur, Tripura and Nagaland,” added Bishnoi. A close associate of CPI (Maoist) top leader Prashant Bose alias Kishenda, Aklanta is part of the elite group of five top Maoist leaders in charge of operations in Jharkhand, West Bengal and the northeast. Other members include Kishenda, Deo Kumar Singh, Chandraprasad Yadav and Misir Besra.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/C...w/19927340.cms


Withdraw forces from Bengal’s Maoist areas: Mahasweta
Kolkata, May 7: Alleging that many people, including Maoists, have been jailed without trial in West Bengal, Magsaysay award winning writer Mahasweta Devi Monday said human rights groups would ask Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to withdraw forces from Maoist areas. “We have been demanding for many years that joint forces should be withdrawn from (West Bengal) and tribal areas should not be described as Maoist-affected.
We will submit a memorandum to the chief minister on these issues,” the octogenarian writer-social activist told mediapersons. “Without a trial, so many people, some branded as Maoists, others tagged as Naxalites, have been locked up in prison by the government,” she said. Dhiraj Sengupta, general secretary of the Association for Protection of Democratic Rights (APDR), said that “200 tribals in the state’s Maoist affected areas are still in prison”.
Criticising Banerjee, he said: “What she could have done for the tribals, she has not done.” Sengupta added: “Banerjee had promised to get the joint security forces withdrawn from Jangalmahal, political prisoners released and boost development in the tribal-dominated areas. On the contrary, false charges were being slapped on tribals in Jungalmahal.” Jangalmahal is a forested area comprising West Midnapore, Bankura and Purulia districts, known as the hub of Maoists.
“They are being told, if you join (Banerjee led) ruling Trinamool Congress, the cases will be withdrawn,” Sengupta said. She said that development projects announced by the Trinamool Congress government in the state were ineffective while tribals still faced police torture, rape and pillage.
Joint forces comprising central paramilitary troopers and state police personnel were deployed in the Junglamahal in July 2009 to combat Maoists, who had made the area a virtual “free zone” by torching police camps and offices of the then ruling CPI-M and driving out the civil administration.
http://www.indiatvnews.com/news/indi...eta-22665.html


Indian Maoists give green light to local land restoration in conflict zones
KANKER DISTRICT, India (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Four years after Kalavati Salam was elected to lead the Nangarbeda village council in Central India’s Chhattisgarh state, she has finally got her first development plan rolling. The plan, focused on reversing land degradation and boosting crop yields, benefits from a generous budget and a dedicated work force.
Equally important, it has the support of the Communist Party of India (Maoist), a banned political organisation that has blocked many previous development efforts. “In the last four years, I tried building a road and a mobile phone tower and laying a water pipeline. Each time, we had to abandon work halfway because they (Maoist activists) opposed them,” says Salam.
“But now we are taking up works like restoring village land. We are trying to change the definition of development,” she adds, visibly relieved. The process includes levelling the land, clearing it of stones, and then covering it with manure. “Most of the farm plots here are uneven, lifeless. We remove layers of soil from those plots that are higher, until the entire farm is at the same level,” says villager Sonkumari Bai, 42. “We also remove big and small stones. Sometimes we winnow the top soil before putting it back into the land. Finally, we till the land and cover it with dried cow dung and gypsum.”
The inhabitants of Nangarbeda, which has a population of 2,700, hope this will help improve their harvests. “The temperature here is increasing day by day. Earlier in the summer, we would grow vegetables like cucumbers and cow beans. But now the land is so dry, we can grow nothing,” says Bhagobai Pradhan, who has a three-acre farm. “This treatment should make some difference. When the rain comes, the once-tilled land will get soaked easily and the manure will mix with it well.” Kanker district, where Nangarbeda is located, is one of 82 districts that have been severely affected by Maoist activities, according to the Indian government.
ATTACKS ON GOVERNMENT PROJECTS
In 2010, the government launched an 820 crore rupee ($150 million) initiative that includes building roads, supplying electricity and drinking water, building schools and community health centres and implementing the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA), a programme designed to end rural poverty by giving 100 days’ employment a year to the rural poor. The plan has faced stiff opposition from Maoist activists, who say it will only lead to displacement of local tribal people and give security forces easy access to their forest hideouts.
Salam recalls how Maoists disrupted a government project in 2010. “We brought in trucks full of stone chips, cement and sand to build a tar road. But when the bulldozers came, they set fire to them. We had to stop the work and couldn’t spend the budget allocated for the project,” she says. A half-built archway at the village entrance, together with heaps of stone and concrete on the roadsides, back up her testimony. Maya Kavde, head of Makdi Khuna, another village in the same district, says suspected Maoist activists recently vandalised a mobile phone tower in her village by cutting wires and pulling apart the antennas.
But in January, Kavde began carrying out a land restoration project through MNREGA, and so far has encountered no opposition. “We have a budget of 32 lakh rupees ($64,000) to spend on land levelling and deepening the two community lakes. We also have plans to plant 1,000 Neem trees during the monsoon,” says Kavde. Nanak Baghel, a senior Maoist leader in Kanker, says his party fully supports the land restoration project.
“We are against the government-backed development projects that are just tools to systematically destroy the tribal people. But we never oppose people’s right to better land, water or forest,” says Baghel, an area commander. Sukhanti Bai, head of Handitola village in another conflict-affected district, Rajnandgaon, describes how soil degradation and falling yields have pushed villagers to restore their land here too.
“There are many companies here mining for iron ore and limestone. They have caused a lot of deforestation. Also security forces cut many trees to build their camps inside forests. Now, we have less rain and a lot of dust coming from the mines and damaging our fields,” she explains. “Everyone in my village is experiencing a 10 to 20 percent drop in rice yield. Last year, we held a meeting to discuss what work we must make a priority, and everyone said it should be land restoration,” she adds.
The majority of the local people are landless, marginal farmers who own less than 2.5 acres of land. At 146 rupees ($3) a day, the 100 days’ employment under MNREGA is important to these people who have no work in the summer, from March to May, as agriculture is dependent on rain.
FOOD SECURITY
Another example is Peda Bandirevu, a village in Khammam district of Andhra Pradesh state which shares not only a border but also the Maoist conflict with Chhattisgarh. It too has seen many violent protests against development projects like road building. In 2011, Maoists set fire to generators, hydraulic excavators and trucks carrying construction materials.
They also allegedly planted landmines to stop security forces from investigating. This year, however, Peda Bandirevu is implementing MNREGA to restore degraded land, and so far the work has not been disrupted. The village has suffered from drought since 2002, and has juliflora, a thorny shrub, growing everywhere.
The result is severely degraded land with a very high level of salinity. Srinivasa Rao, a local programme officer for MNREGA, says land restoration begins with uprooting juliflora and covering the land with red or black mud collected from village tanks and ponds. “These two works – land treatment and de-silting of tanks – go hand in hand,” says Rao. “The moisture of the silt slowly enters the land, making it softer. By the time the monsoon comes, the top soil will be alive, ready for sowing.”
According to Luc Gnacadja, executive secretary of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), including land in development plans will help nations fight food insecurity. “Avoiding land degradation and restoring degraded land should be a centrepiece to every state’s development plans,” Gnacadja said in a recent interview.
For local people, the land restoration projects in Nangarbeda and Peda Bandirevu are not only a step towards ensuring food supplies. They also create a more secure working environment. Ramulu Amma, a 32-year-old villager in Peda Bandirevu, says she feels safer now. “For nearly five years we were working on road projects and every day we would anticipate trouble.
Though the Maoist activists would never hurt us, they would stop the work and send us home. And every time that happened, we did not get our wages,” she says. “But now, we are working to improve our own fields and there is no fear of a loss of pay or a threat.”
http://www.trust.org/item/20130507141436-lmpwv/


Maoist claims RIMS blast
IMPHAL, May 6: The proscribed Maoist Communist Party Manipur has in a press release claimed its hand in the bomb explosion at the Regional Institute of Medical Science (RIMS) campus. A press release of the banned outfit signed by its Publicity and Propaganda secretary comrade Nonglen Meitei said that the bomb explosion at the Regional Institute of Medical Science (RIMS) campus was carried out by Maoist Communist Party Manipur as a part of its “class struggle.”
It alleged that the doctors at RIMS are not performing their duty properly as a result of which, many poor people like farmers and labourers had to suffer a lot. While demanding resignation from the Director accusing him of not performing his duty well, the outfit has also also announced a general strike on May 17 from 5 am to 5 pm. The general strike will be suspended immediately if the doctors start performing their duty well and the Director resigns, the release added.
http://kanglaonline.com/2013/05/maoi...ms-rims-blast/


Divided, killed and ruled
A militia allegedly backed by the Jharkhand administration appears to be giving sleepless nights to what Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has described as India’s biggest internal security threat – the CPI (Maoists) – in this eastern state. Armed with sophisticated weapons such as AK-47 assault rifles and SLRs (self-loading rifles) used by the state police and the Maoists alike, the Tritiya Prastuti Committee (TPC), meaning Third Action Committee, is wreaking havoc on the parent organisation, whose influence covers 18 of Jharkhand’s 24 districts.
Though the outfit is one of at least six rebel splinter groups in Jharkhand, it’s the most potent because it’s the only one which has the tacit support of the state and its security forces. The TPC is inflicting irreparable damage to its parent organsation by providing vital leads to the security forces, guiding them into Maoist hideouts, engaging its fighters in gun battles and then killing them with the help of the state forces.
Though the TPC – which claims to propagate Stalinism – was formed in 2002, it is only recently that it’s being used by the Jharkhand administration to battle the Maoists. It has also brought to light the state’s tactics of allegedly sponsoring an enemy to wipe out the bigger enemy, something first witnessed in Kashmir in the form of the state-backed Ikhwan-ul-Muslimeen and then in Chhattisgarh’s Dantewada district where the state supported armed vigilante groups – named the Salwa Judum – against the Maoists.
The grisly killing of 10 Maoist guerrillas, including four senior leaders, by lesser known TPC cadres at Chatra in March-end this year signaled a new chapter in the 46-year-old Maoist or Naxal movement in the country. Both the TPC and the Jharkhand police, however, deny reports of their collusion.
“It’s true that the police are not our biggest enemies, but we do not enjoy any patronage from them,” senior TPC leader Alokji told HT from his hideout. Jharkhand director general of police Rajiv Kumar and his predecessor GS Rath vehemently denied reports of the police alliance with the TPC. “Any group which is into wanton killings cannot be our friend,” Kumar said, adding, “We have booked and killed TPC men in encounters whenever confronted.”
Said a former Maoist zonal commander now leading a civilian life in Palamu: “The TPC comprises a bunch of renegades, most of whom were thrown out for misappropriation of party funds or for indulging in adultery, womanising, and alcohol addiction.” He alleged that acting on police directives, TPC men had burnt the houses of all his relatives when he was in the organisation fighting an ideological battle with the state.
“They didn’t even spare the house of my newly-wed niece and looted all her belongings before rendering the family homeless,” he said. “Organisations like the TPC that thrive merely on state support don’t last long,” said former Jharkhand Maoist organisation secretary Yugal Pal, pointing to the Salwa Judum, which is non-existent these days. “The TPC has no commitment to the masses, neither has it had any ideology. Without the people’s support, no left-wing extremist group can flourish,” he said.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/India-...1-1055959.aspx


Maharashtra ATS arrests two alleged Kabir Kala Manch members
Two members of the Pune-based cultural group Kabir Kala Manch (KKM), alleged to be Maoists, were arrested today after they surrendered to the police, the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) said. KKM members Ramesh Gaychor and Sagar Gorkhe were apprehended after they surrendered, an ATS official said. The two have been booked under relevant sections of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, the official said.
A month ago, two KKM members, identified as Sheetal Sathe (27) and Sachin Mali (30), had surrendered outside the state assembly premises. In a crackdown conducted in April 2011, the ATS had arrested Angela Sontakke (42), an alleged Maoist and wife of Milind Teltumbde, allegedly the secretary of the Communist Party of India-Maoist’s Maharashtra committee, and also recovered Rs 1.54 lakh in her possession from the neighbouring Thane district, while her alleged aide Sushma Ramteke (27) was caught in Pune.
Days later, four more alleged Maoists, Mayur Bhagat alias Jenny (23), Jyoti Chorghe (19) and Anuradha Sonule (23) were nabbed from Pune, while Sonule’s alleged aide Siddharth Bhosale (24) was arrested at Nashik. Allegedly, Sontakke also worked as secretary of the so-called ‘Golden Corridor Committee’ formed in February 2008 to spread Maoist ideology among students and labourers.
http://www.business-standard.com/art...0700686_1.html

Source: http://www.signalfire.org/?p=24209

[TheGodlessUtopian]

One jawan killed, 3 injured in Chhattisgarh naxal encounter
Raipur: A security personnel of Chhattisgarh Armed Force (CAF) was today killed and three others were injured in an encounter with naxalites in the state’s Maoist-hit Sukma district, police said. “The incident took place in the jungles of Kistaram police station area of the district when the CAF jawans were on a combing operation in the region early this morning,” a senior police official told PTI over phone. When the patrolling party reached near the forest of Kistaram village, the naxals opened indiscriminate fire on them, killing one jawan and injuring three others, the official said.
The victim was identified as – constable Parshu Markam. The injured – platoon commander Bhagwat Baghel, head constables Ramnarayan Singh and Rajbahor Patel – were referred to Jagdalpur town for treatment, the official said, adding that additional forces have been rushed to the spot. Naxals also looted three rifles of jawans, he said.
http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/on...counter-364173


Government to deploy 10,000 more personnel in four states to fight Maoists
NEW DELHI: With the government moving towards a fight to finish war against Maoists in Red Zone, the Union home ministry has decided to deploy additional 10 bBattalions (10,000 personnel) of paramilitary forces in four highly naxal-affected states — Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Bihar.
Five (5,000 personnel) out of the 10 battalions will be drawn from the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) while the remaining five will be spared by SSB, BSF and ITBP for anti-naxal operations. Disclosing the decision in response to a Parliament question, the ministry said that the additional 10 battalions had been sanctioned on the basis of requests made by the respective state for stepping up operations against the Red Ultras.
At present, a total number of 532 companies (53,200 personnel) of paramilitary forces have been deployed in the seven Maoist-affected states — Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Bihar, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Odisha. Officials in the ministry said that Jharkhand — which is currently under the President’s rule — would see the maximum deployment where the security forces had already been engaged in intensive operations against the Red Ultras under the leadership of ex-CRPF chief K Vijay Kumar who is posted there as one of the advisors of the state governor.
“Idea is to continue the intensive operations against Maoists before the onset of Monsoon in these states”, said an official.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/i...w/19945889.cms


Maoist Involved in BJD MLA’s Abduction Arrested
A hardcore Maoist allegedly involved in the abduction of ruling BJD MLA Jhina Hikaka and wanted in several murder cases, was arrested in Odisha’s Rayagada district, police said today. Acting on a tip-off, a police team arrested the ultra Gameli China Mohan Rao alias Santu of Goudaput village in Andhra Pradesh from a forest area yesterday, they said.
A 9 mm pistol, live ammunition, five geletine sticks and some detonators were also recovered from the Maoist, Rayagada Superintendent of Police Rajesh Pandit said. Two pen drives, two cellphones, a fake voter identity card and over Rs 60,000 were also seized from the naxal, an area committee member (ACM) in Koraput-Srikakulam division of Andhra Odisha Border Special Zonal Committee (AOBSZC) of the outlawed CPI (Maoist), Pandit said.
The arrested Maoist confessed to his involvement in the abduction of Hikaka, the tribal legislator from Laxmipur in March, 2012. The ultra told police that Maoists, who had given a bandh call on March 24, were engaged in blocking the road near Toyaput when they had spotted Hikaka in a vehicle, police said. The naxal further stated before police that on his direction, that the MLA was abducted and produced before Srikakulam-Koraput divisional committee secretary Daya.
http://news.outlookindia.com/items.aspx?artid=797604


Maoists manufacturing grenades in their units, govt tells LS
NEW DELHI: The government on Tuesday informed Lok Sabha that Maoists were manufacturing improvised hand grenades and rocket propelled grenades in their arms manufacturing units in Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Jharkhand. In response to a Parliament question, minister of state for home RPN Singh said steps taken to bust these manufacturing units included deployment of forces at strategic locations, firm police action against such unlawful activities and intensified intelligence-based anti-Naxal operations.
“Besides, the central government closely monitors the situation and issues advisories to the Left Wing Extremism-affected state governments to keep a check on such activities,” he said. In response to another question, the minister informed the House that 532 companies (53,200 personnel) of paramilitary forces were deployed in Maoist-affected states including Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Bihar, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Odisha.
The government, however, decided to provide 10 additional battalions of paramilitary forces (10,000 personnel) including five battalions (5,000 personnel) of CRPF to four Naxal-affected states including Jharkhand, Odisha, Bihar and Chhattisgarh.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/i...w/19941341.cms


Maoists plan 10th Congress this monsoon
VISAKHAPATNAM: Already smarting from the recent defeat at the Kanchala forest shootout, where nine Reds were gunned down, the beleaguered Naxalites are quietly gearing up to hold the crucial 10th Congress of the CPI Maoist Party during the monsoon this year. The mega meet of the banned outfit, which is usually held once in five years, is aimed at reviving the flagging fortunes of the Reds and is expected to see the participation of at least 1000-1500 key Maoists from the central, regional, zonal and state levels.
Nearly 2,000 guerrillas are expected to provide a massive security cover to the big-ticket meet. The 9th Congress was held in 2007 somewhere on the Jharkhand-Chhattisgarh border. The 10th Congress is crucial for the future of the banned party as it would help chalk out the future course of action and also give it a definite sense of direction.
The meeting, to be chaired by Maoist party general secretary Muppalla Lakshman Rao alias Ganapathy, is expected to draw the entire top brass including Maoist party’s all India military chief Namballa Kesava Rao alias Basava Raju, guerilla warfare strategist Malla Rajireddy alias Sattenna among others.
Sources say the meeting would also debate over the next generation leadership of the party as most of the top brass of the banned outfit are over 60 years. Senior officials involved in anti-Naxalite operations claim there are indications that the meeting will be held soon, probably as early as the monsoon, which would be ideal as the combing operations by security forces are expected to come to a virtual halt from July.
Moreover, the canopy cover during the monsoon period would also protect the Red rebels from surveillance by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) that were deployed to great success in the Kanchala forest encounter recently. The intelligence officials first got wind of the upcoming Congress thanks to the arrest of key Andhra-Odisha Border Special Zonal Committee leader Sriramula Srinivas alias Sri Sri in late March at Wyra in Khammam district because soon after his arrest AOB-SZC official spokesperson (political) Jagabandhu clarified that Sri Sri had resigned in January from the CPI Maoist Party and his resignation was accepted in February during the third conference of the AOB SZC and second plenum.
“Before this, whenever the Congress was held, the various committees at the regional, zonal, state, division and district levels too held their respective meetings to analyse their performances of the past five years and pass on their resolutions to the higher committees, which in turn presented them before the Congress.
The Congress then decides the future course of action. The fact that the AOB-SZC, one of the strongest committees, held its third conference recently is a clear indicator that the big meeting is on the anvil,” the official said. The 10th Congress could not be held in 2012 as scheduled because of the weakening position of the Maoists, who have suffered grave losses over the past five years.
Since the 9th Congress was held in 2007, the Maoists saw their strongest Nallamalla division in Andhra Pradesh being completely wiped out by security forces after the 2005 peace talks with the YSR government, even as the Maoists stronghold of West Midnapore in West Bengal was declared liberated by the security forces.
The last five years has also seen 25 central committee or politburo leaders either being captured or killed in encounters. While key leaders like Kishenji, official central committee spokesman Rajkumar alias Azad, military wing chief Patel Sudhakar Reddy were killed, key think tank like Kobad Gandhi were captured.
However, the security forces are still clueless about the possible venue for the crucial meet or its duration though it is usually a 5-10 day affair. Having got wind of the upcoming mega meet, the AP State Intelligence Bureau (APSIB) and the central intelligence forces are busy gathering inputs from conflict zones in Odisha, AOB, Odisha-Chhattisgarh border and Chhattisgarh-AP border.
“Usually before the meeting is held, the region witnesses a spike in the transportation of commodities, which indicates that the meet is being held somewhere in that zone. This is the reason why all the traders in the Maoist infested areas have put under surveillance,” an intelligence source said.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/i...w/19942442.cms


Maoists allege atrocities on women by forces
BHUBANESWAR, May 7, 2013, DHNS: Maoists operating in Odisha’s Malkangiri district have alleged that women have become victims of atrocities committed by security forces during anti-Maoist operations in the interior’s of tribal-dominated areas. The ultras have also called for a two-day bandh in the district for May 10 and 11 to protest against the alleged atrocities.
The Odisha Police and para-military forces like the Border Security Force have been conducting anti-Maoist operations in Malkangiri district, considered one of the worst Maoist-hit districts in the country. According to a report, Biplabi Mahila Sangathan, a newly floated women’s organisation reportedly backed by the Maoists, held a rally and public meeting at Bhejangaiwada on Monday to protest the repeated torture of women by the security personnel.
http://www.deccanherald.com/content/...en-forces.html

Source: http://www.signalfire.org/?p=24221

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Two naxal sympathisers held in Chhattisgarh
Raipur: Two young suspected Naxal sympathisers, including a school girl, were on Thursday arrested in Maoist-hit Bijapur district of Chhattisgarh, police said. “The Maoist sympathisers were nabbed from Kaika village of the district during an anti-Naxal operation by district force,” a senior official told PTI.
Those arrested duo were identified as Manju Avlam (18) and Aytu Avlam (21), the official added. According to police, both have admitted that they were helping Dinesh, a member of Gangalur LOS (local operating squad) of Maoists for supplying commodities of regular use to Naxals, besides acting as messengers for him.
“A few letters of communication with Maoists, Naxal literature and a couple of sharp-edged weapons have been recovered from their possession,” the official said. Both were booked under Chhattisgarh Jan Suraksha Adhiniyam 2005 (Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act) and the Arms Act. Manju is a ninth grade student in a government school of Bahairmagdh village in the region and recently appeared in her final exams.
http://zeenews.india.com/news/chhatt...rh_847529.html


BSNL installs 363 towers in naxal affected areas
MUMBAI: Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) has installed a total of 363 mobile towers in the naxal affected areas, after the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) identified 2199 locations to Department of Telecommunications (DoT) for installation of mobile towers in nine states which are affected by Left Wing Extremism (LWE) and do not currently have any coverage by any service provider. BSNL has covered 363 out of the 2199 locations including 351 in Chattisgarh, six in Madhya Pradesh, three in Andhra Pradesh and three in Maharashtra.
The scheme of installation of mobile towers is funded by Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF). The total number of locations identified by the MHA comprised of 227 in Andhra Pradesh, 184 in Bihar, 497 in Chattisgarh, 782 in Jharkhand, 22 in Madhya Pradesh, 60 in Maharashtra, 253 in Odisha, 78 in Uttar Pradesh and 96 in West Bengal.
In May 2007, the USOF launched a scheme called the Shared Mobile Infrastructure Scheme (SMIS) to provide subsidy support for setting up and managing 7353 infrastructure sites/towers in 500 districts. These included the LWE affected districts spread over 27 states for provision of mobile services in the specified rural and remote areas, where there was no existing fixed, wireless or mobile coverage.
Villages which have a population of 2000 or more and having no mobile coverage, were taken into consideration for installation of towers under the scheme. 673 mobile towers were targeted in the 11th Five Year Plan under the scheme in LWE affected districts and all these towers have been installed.
The details of subsidy disbursed by USOF under shared mobile infrastructure scheme upto February 2013 include 42.33 crore for Andhra Pradesh, 11.21cr in Bihar, 30.57 for Chattisgarh, 8.34 for Jharkhand, 17.76 in Madhya Pradesh, 30.01 in Maharashtra, 12.35 in Odisha, 35.28 in Uttar Pradesh and 4.12 in West Bengal. The Ministry also stated that in the 12th Plan period, all villages which presently do not have mobile coverage will be provided with connectivity under a scheme funded by USOF.
http://www.radioandmusic.com/content...affected-areas


Bastar tribals demand CBI probe
RAIPUR: Enraged tribals of Maoist hotbed Narayanpur district in tribal Bastar region of Chhattisgarh are demanding a CBI probe into the alleged police encounter of two villagers in Maronaar village near ChoteDongar on April 30. A joint team of COBRA battalion, CRPF and district force claimed to have gunned down Maoist cadres of Duala Dalam Phool Singh and Jai Singh.
Since then police have been facing severe protest from 84 villages in the vicinity against the killing. Talking to TOI, Panniram Wadde, president of tribal Gond community in Bastar said, “On the night of April 30, town inspector Vijay Chelak and sun-divisional officer of police B N Baghel dragged three brothers of the family to the police station and after brief interrogation, police relieved Ram Singh, keeping Jai Singh and Phool Singh in the custody. Next morning their mutilated body was found in the jungles of Maronaar, few kilometre from the police station. Aged between 30 and 35 years, both the villagers were involved in farming.” Wadde said, the police had also claimed to have found four muzzle loading guns, one USA made pistol, one country-made pistol, couple of grenades and tiffin bombs, detonators and Naxal literature in their camps, but the fact was that they were dragged empty-handed from their homes. Panniram alleged that the police had fabricated the encounter by beating them and made them wear Maoists uniforms, killing them in the forests.
More than 10,000 agitated villagers from 84 nearby villages gheraod the police station in protest demanding CBI probe in the case. “Not only did the police kill them, they also buried both the bodies in the same ditch after conducting post mortem,” Panniram said adding that the body was not handed over to the family. Comrade Niti, commander south Bastar CPI (Maoist) called up newsmen at midnight, to point out that it was not the first time that police victimized innocent villagers.
“When they fail to trace Maoists they assault villagers and kill them fabricating the incident as an encounter. This time too the police have killed two innocents. CPI (Maoist) strongly condemns the incident,” she said. In another incident, a member of Gond community, Pramod Potai, said that more than 30 villagers of Kukrajor region, 10 km from Narayanpur, were admitted to a hospital after being brutally beaten up by the police.
“The CRPF base camp was attacked by Maoists on the intervening night of Tuesday opening firing at policemen. Though there were no casualties, soon after the incident police came to the village thrashing them for not passing them information about planned firing,” said Potai. Condition of five villagers is said to be critical.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/c...w/19962690.cms


Key leader of north-east chapter of CPI(Maoist) arrested by Assam police from Guwahati
NEW DELHI: CPI(Maoist) central committee member and a key leader of the north-east chapter of the outfit, Anukul Chandra Naskar alias Paresh Da, was arrested by the Assam police on Thursday from Guwahati. Naskar wa picked up almost two weeks after the arrest of another central committee member, Mahesh ji, who was heading the north-east operations of CPI(Maoist).
With the arrest of Maheshji and his key aide, Naskar, MHA sources are already claiming near decimation of the north-east wing of the CPI(Maoist). This wing has been serving as a crucial link with other north-eastern insurgent outfits for sourcing illegal arms from syndicates across the border.
The police are now on the lookout of another CPI(Maoist) leader active in the northeast, Aditya Borah. With Naskar’s arrest, the membership of the CPI(Maoist) central committee has shrunk from the original 31 to just 19. Even the politburo is now down from 14 members to 7 on account of arrest or neutralisation of 7 members in the recent years.
Anukul Chandra Naskar, aged 65 years, was a native of Balia village in West Bengal’s 24 South Paraganas district. He joined MCC in 1967 and became a central committee member in 1985. After the CPI(Maoist)-MCC merger, Naskar was made a member of both the Politburo and central committee in 2004. Later, he stepped down from the politbureau but continued as a central committee member.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/i...w/19970290.cms


Injured Red nabbed from Pandra hideout
DALTONGANJ: A 21-year-old CPI (Maoist), undergoing treatment at an abandoned house near Pandra in Ranchi, was arrested by Palamu police on Tuesday. He got injured on May 3 while laying landmines on a metallic road near Abun village. The Maoist, Goodar Bhuiyan alias Mahender, was under the medical care of a doctor D C Bharti. He had a bandaged leg and a catheter for urination at the time of his arrest.
Three or more persons were engaged in laying landmines in that village under Panki police station area. They exploded before it could be laid, injuring Bhuiyan and the other rebels. The Maoist was presented before media persons in Daltonganj on Wednesday by SP Palamu Anoop T Mathew. The injured rebel received treatment in Daltonganj too before he was shifted to doctor Bharti’s clinic at Pandra in Ranchi.
The doctor was providing treatment to the Maoist in Ranchi without informing the police. However, realizing that it would invite trouble for him Bharti did not admit the rebel to his clinic. “Before a surgery could be done on the Maoist for a sum of Rs 40,000, the Palamu police arrested him,” said the SP. Maoists have a good network in Ranchi and the entire medical expense was borne by the outfit.
“I have not spent anything from my pocket for the treatment there in Ranchi,” said Bhuiyan. Mathew said police was on the lookout ever since they were tipped-off that one Maoist was injured on May 3 and was undergoing treatment at Pandra in Ranchi. Bhuiyan has confessed his involvement in laying landmines. Palamu police have arranged for his treatment.
Along with Bhuiyan Palamu police have arrested another person, Satrangi Bhuiyan (20), who helped the injured Maoist to receive treatment first in Daltonganj and then in Ranchi. The injured Bhuiyan said, “I joined the Maoists to free my land from dispute. But the Maoists wanted me to first serve the outfit.” He was an active member of the CPI Maoists’ platoon.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/c...w/19962562.cms


Top security brass meet after Red threat to Malkangiri bridge
BHUBANESWAR: The state government is worried over the sudden rise in Maoist violence in the interior areas of Malkangiri district, particularly in Mathilli block, which in the last few weeks has witnessed a number of kidnappings, murders and destruction of public property. The Unified Command, headed by the chief secretary, met here on Wednesday to take stock of the situation and chalk out strategies for containing the extremists.
The meeting took place amid intelligence reports that the extremists are planning to blow up the nearly 110-meter-long Kiang bridge, the only connection to the rather inaccessible hilly and heavily forested Mathili area, bordering Chhattisgarh. “There is a security camp at Mathilil, but forces hardly move into the interior areas crossing the bridge out of fear of being ambushed by the extremists. If the bridge is destroyed the area will be totally cut off,” official sources pointed out.
Malkangiri district has seen at least six killings by Maoists in the last six months. This includes the murder of three persons, including the naib sarpanch of Kiang panchayat, of the six persons kidnapped by the Reds in two phases. The extremists on Monday blew up the Kiang panchayat building and prior to that on May 3 destroyed the only mobile tower, rendering the area completely out of touch even by police and the district administration.
“For all practical purposes the Maoists have taken over Mathili area,” said a senior Malkangiri district official. “The Maoists two days back summoned four sarpanchs of the area and kept them in their captivity. As yet we don’t have any confirmed report about their whereabouts,” the official said. He ruled out air operation saying the area being too hilly helicopters may not be able to land there. Malkangiri SP Akhileswar Singh conceded the situation is ‘very bad’.
“Communication access to the area has been totally cut off after the destruction of the mobile tower,” the SP said. The SP attributed the rise in violence in Mathili area to the exodus of Maoists belonging to the Dharaba division of the CPI (Maoist). “Due to heavy pressure from the adjoining Chhattisgarh side, where CRPF was deployed recently, the extremists have entered into Odisha area and are continuing violence,” he said. He estimated their number to be around 170.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/c...w/19960872.cms


Coal Industry Stung as Terror Cuts Explosives: Corporate India
By Rajesh Kumar Singh - Coal India Ltd. (COAL), the nation’s biggest producer of the commodity, cut output across its operations after a federal order to keep explosives from terrorists halted shipments of the material that’s also central to mining.
No explosives have been dispatched to Coal India’s mines for the past three days because suppliers are grappling with the new rules imposed to ensure safety of the consignments, Chairman S. Narsing Rao said in an interview. The state-owned company uses about 400,000 metric tons of explosives in a year and produces about 1.2 million tons daily from its 466 mines.
Coal Industry Stung as Terror Cuts Explosives
“Explosives are bread and butter for us,” Rao said. “Operations at all mines have been affected and we are assessing the impact.” Faced with a Maoist rebellion in resource-rich states of India, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government is increasing security measures to prevent the chemicals from falling into the hands of extremists fighting a war against the state.
The disruption may hurt the Kolkata-based company, which supplies 80 percent of the fuel the nation needs, and starve power producers struggling to eliminate blackouts in a country where peak demand for electricity exceeds generation by 9 percent.
‘Not Practical’
Vehicles transporting derivatives of ammonium nitrate, the main raw material in mining explosives, need to be escorted by armed guards of the local police of every district they pass through, according to an order by the Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organization that came into force on April 30. Suppliers risk losing their permits should they flout the new rules, according to the notification. “This is just not practical,” said Subhas Pramanik, Managing Director at Gulf Oil Corp. Ltd., which makes and supplies explosives to mines.
“This will increase our cost because the number of shipments will get reduced substantially.” Ammonium nitrate, also used to make fertilizers, was found to have been used in a number of blasts in the country, including in the southern city of Hyderabad in February that killed 16 people.
To check such misuse, the government last year introduced rules for storage, shipment and stockpiling. The stoppage is set to squeeze Coal India, which missed its output target in the year ended March 31 as it battled law and order problems, worker unrest and delays in acquiring land and mining approvals.
Power Outages
Coal India, which is 90 percent owned by the state and fires more than half of the nation’s electricity generation capacity, is under pressure to ensure uninterrupted shipments of the fuel. Power outages shave off about 1.2 percentage points off the growth of the $1.8 trillion economy that expanded at the slowest pace in a decade, according to government estimates.
India’s coal demand is expected to rise 41 percent by 2017 to 981 million tons, while supplies from local mines may gain 28 percent to 715 million tons, the Planning Commission said last year. The nation, which generates 57 percent of its electricity from coal, plans to add 118 gigawatts of capacity in the five years ending March 2017, said I.A. Khan, energy adviser at the commission. Coal India shares fell 1.1 percent to 308.85 rupees in Mumbai.
The stock has declined 13 percent this year, compared with a 2.6 percent gain in the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex. (SENSEX) Solar Industries Ltd. (SOIL), India’s biggest supplier of industrial explosives, declined 2.9 percent to 989.15 rupees, the most in more than two months. Rival Gulf Oil, the second-biggest, declined 2.6 percent to 62.85 rupees.
Maoist Rebels
“The situation poses serious implications and can potentially bring the mining industry to a standstill,” said Abhisar Jain, an analyst with Centrum Broking Pvt. in Mumbai, who has a neutral rating on Coal India stock. “If not resolved soon, it can aggravate power shortages and lead to a crunch in supplies of end materials such as steel and aluminum on account of shortage of minerals due to a halt in mining.”
Maoist guerillas, who regularly clash with police mostly in India’s mining regions in the states of Odisha, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Bihar, say they are fighting on behalf of poor villagers and tribal communities whose resources are exploited for development with little benefit for the local people.
In 2009, Maoists attacked National Aluminium Co.’s Odisha bauxite mine in a bid to seize the explosives stored at a warehouse. The gun battle between guards and the guerillas, which killed at least 14 people, slowed output at the mine for several weeks as workers refused to work at night.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-0...ate-india.html

Source: http://www.signalfire.org/?p=24240

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Naxal’s arrest a breakthrough for cops
ISAKHAPATNAM: Police have come across a mine of information on the CPI (Maoist) party’s top brass and its sympathizers following the arrest of Andhra Odisha Border Special Zonal Committee top leader Marpu Venkataramana alias Lenju alias Jagadeesh a few days ago at Berhampur in Odisha.
According to sources, the laptop and pen drives recovered from the Maoist leader have revealed valuable information about top rung rebel leaders, cadres and sympathizers, apart from giving crucial leads on intellectuals supporting the Maoist ideology. The cops are also learnt to have recovered Rs 1.70 lakh in cash from him. It is learnt that the pen drives contained details of the recent AOBSZC conference and plenum, future strategy and plans that may give some insight into the upcoming 10th Congress which the cops suspect is likely to be held in the coming monsoon.
This has given the security forces the confidence that they may be able to make further inroads into the Maoist network and glean more information about the whereabouts of other Maoist leaders and cadres. “Before the summer, Maoist committees prepare circulars about precautionary measure to be taken to avoid the massive combing operations that are usually taken up by the security forces during these months. At the same time, they take up tactical counter offensive campaigns (TCOC) to divert the attention of the cops.
Lot of literature pertaining to such moves has been recovered from the arrested Maoist,” said a source. Jagadeesh’s arrest is being considered as a major victory for the security forces as, being one of the key members in the AOBSZC, he was familiar with the AOB terrain and played a key role in evolving strategies to inflict heavy casualties on the security forces over the past two decades.
The former East Division secretary, who has an experience of 27 years in the field as he joined the Maoist rank at the age of 17 while he was pursuing his ITI in Visakhapatnam, is an important catch as he has been looking after the technical and political aspects of the Koraput-Srikakulam division committee for the past three years and is familiar with the ins and outs of the Maoist outfit in the region, a senior police official involved in anti-Naxalite operations said.
According to sources, the arrest of Jagadeesh, coming as it does on the back of the nabbing of Koraput Area Committee member Santosh alias Gemmeli Chinna at Rayagarh in Odisha, had helped the cops crack a vital link in the Maoist network because it was the arrest of Santosh that tipped the cops off about Jagadeesh’s whereabouts.
The captured Maoist leader, who hails from Binnala Madhanapuram in Mandasa mandal of Srikakulam district, was produced before the magistrate at Anakapalle on Thursday night and sentenced to 14 days remand. The Vizag rural police are likely to seek custody of the arrested Naxalite in a couple of days.
Incidentally, Jagadeesh was allegedly captured while he was undergoing treatment at a hospital in Behrampur after he suffered bullet wounds in the right leg during the encounter at Gunukurai in GK Veedhi Mandal in 2008, much before the Balimela ambush in which 37 security cops met a watery grave. However, Andhra Pradesh cops claimed that Jagadeesh was actually arrested at Anakapalle railway station while he was on his way to a Maoist safe zone in Odisha.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/c...w/19997693.cms

Chhattisgarh Govt extends ban on CPI-Maoist, affiliates
Raipur, May 10 : Chhattisgarh Government has extended by one more year the ban on top Naxal outfit CPI-Maoist and half a dozen organisations affiliated with it. “The ban on CPI-Maoist and its six front organisations has been extended for another year,” a Home Department official said here today. The dreaded outfit, along with its affiliates, was first outlawed in the state in April 2006 under Section 3 of the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act, 2005.
Since then the State Government has been extending the ban every year. CPI-Maoist was formed nearly a decade ago after the merger of two groups—CPI (ML) People’s War and MCC. It is since then spearheading the Naxal movement. The front organisations to face ban are Dandakaranya Adivasi Kisan Mazdoor Sangh, Krantikari Adivasi Mahila Sangh, Krantikari Adivasi Balak Sangh, Krantikari Kisan Committee, Mahila Mukti Manch and Jantana Sarkar, the official added.
http://www.indiatvnews.com/news/indi...tes-22801.html


Naxalites flee police custody
BHOPAL: Two alleged Naxalites gave a slip to the police while being taken to a district court in Chhattisgarh for a hearing. The accused were travelling from Singrauli district in Madhya Pradesh on Thursday morning. While one was arrested, a massive search operation is on to arrest his associate. Both belonged to the Renga Yadav dalam, claimed police. The special task force and hawk force of the state police have been mobilised to arrest the accused along with the district force.
According to official sources, Naxalite Kamaruddin alias Kamalahasan and a Naxal sympathizer Sanjay Kherwar – both lodged in Rewa central jail were being taken to Korea district in Chhattisgarh. When they reached Bhargawan, district Singrauli at around 4.30pm, they gave a slip to the police and escaped from custody while drinking tea. The police, however, arrested Kherwar. Superintendent of police (SP) Singrauli, Jaidevan told media that efforts were on to arrest him. The ASI who was taking them to Chhattisgarh was suspended for dereliction of duty immediately after the incident.
A department enquiry has been initiated against the head constables and constables who arrested them. The accused were arrested by the Singrauli police in August 2011. One of them had killed Renga Yadav and was trying to regroup the dalam. They were mainly running extortion rackets in Singrauli and bordering Chhattisgarh, the police said.
http://articles.timesofindia.indiati...auli-naxalites

Top Maoist leader held in Assam
The 65-year-old Naskar hails from Balia in 24 South Parganas district A joint team of the Assam police and the Special Intelligence Branch (SIB) from Andhra Pradesh on Wednesday arrested top CPI (Maoist) leader Anukul Chandra Naskar alias Goer Chandra Naskar alias Pareshji in southern Assam’s Cachar district. Senior Superintendent of Police A.P. Tiwari told The Hindu that Naskar was a “very senior leader and a policymaker of the CPI (Maoist).”
He is member of the Polit Bureau of the CPI (Maoist). The 65-year-old Naskar, who hails from Balia under the Sonapur police station in 24 South Parganas district of West Bengal, joined the Maoist Coordination Committee (MCC) in 1967. He became a member of the central committee of the MCC in 1985. When the MCC and the People’s War Group (PWG) merged to form the CPI (Maoist) in 2004, Naskar was made a member of the central committee and the Polit Bureau. Naskar was remanded in police custody for five days by the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate, Kamrup, on Thursday, the SSP said.
Mr. Tiwari said that the SIB team arrived in the city on May 7 and left for Cachar district with a team of the police and arrested Naskar. He was brought to the city later. “While the SIB team from Andhra Pradesh is already here, in the next couple of days top officials of the Intelligence Bureau, the National Investigation Agency (NIA), top police officials of Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, West Bengal and other Maoist affected areas are expected to arrive in the city to interrogate him to get some more leads,” Mr, Tiwari added.
The joint team got lead on Naskar’s presence in Cachar during the interrogation of two other top Maoist leaders — Aklanta Rabha and Siraj Rabha — who were arrested on April 26 on the outskirts of the city, police sources said.
http://www.thehindu.com/news/nationa...cle4699828.ece


Maoist bandh peaceful
In the wake of the two-day bandh called by the Maoists, road communication to Malkangiri district from other parts of the state was paralysed on Friday. The response to the bandh was total as over 100 government and private buses and other vehicles went off the road. Banners and posters of Maoists were found in remote parts of Anakadeli, Machkund, Ramagiri, Gavindapali of Koraput district where the Maoists protested police movement.
Elaborate security arrangements were made for the bandh. Police and para-military forces were deployed in the sensitive pockets. However, life was normal in the Maoist hotbed of Naryanpatana in Koraput district. “We are on high alert and no untoward incident has been reported from any part during the bandh,” said a senior police officer.
According to reports, the Maoists had called the bandh demanding immediate withdrawal of armed forces from the tribal areas of the district, benefits for poor people, proper pricing of the forest products being sold by tribals and stopping police atrocity.
http://newindianexpress.com/states/o...cle1584711.ece


Rockets in Maoist Arsenal
P. V. Ramana May 10, 2013 Naxalites of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) [CPI (Maoist)], or Maoists in short, have been using rockets in their assaults on the security forces since the past, at least, eight years. Confirming this, Minister of State for Home Affairs RSN Singh informed the Lok Sabha, in reply to a question, on May 6, 2013, that the Maoists were “manufacturing improvised hand grenades and rocket propelled grenades (RPGs) in units that have come up in Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh”.
More than a year earlier, on March 4, 2012, the West Bengal police arrested Sadanala Rama Krishna, the head of the Maoists’ Central Technical Team, in 24 North Parganas district, and seized rocket launcher manufacturing equipment, Rs 36 lakh in cash and documents from his flat. Two days later, on March 6, in a joint-effort between the police forces of Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal and Chhattisgarh, police in the Chhattisgarh State capital Raipur recovered 80 boxes containing material/equipment for manufacturing rockets and mortars.
At that time, Senior Superintendent of Police of Raipur, Mr Dipanshu Kabra, said: “There is no doubt that the seized material was meant for the Maoists. It is surprising that such hardware equipment for rocket launchers and mortars was stored in a busy area of (the State capital).” The story of rockets being present in the Maoist arsenal is ten year’s old. Speaking to the media on May 26, 2003, the then Director General of Police, Andhra Pradesh, Mr P Ramulu, said that for the first time the police recovered the designs of an RPG during a raid on a dump of the then Communist Party of India [Marxist-Leninist (People’s War)], PW in short –– the earlier avatar of the Maoists –– in the Kalimela forests, along the Andhra Pradesh-Odisha border.
In fact, a few years later, on January 10, 2007, police in Bhopal busted an arms making-cum-R&D unit of the Maoists, on a tip-off provided by the Andhra Pradesh police. During the raid, Madhya Pradesh Police recovered designs of cross-sections of RPGs and rocket launchers. A year earlier, on September 7 and 8, 2006, in raids in Mahabubnagar and Prakasam districts, Andhra Pradesh, the police unearthed and recovered 875 empty rocket shells and 30 rocket launchers. Investigations led the police to the Ambattur industrial estate, a suburb of Chennai, where these were manufactured in seven separate industrial units/workshops.
The complex trail of manufacturing and transshipment of the empty shells and rocket launchers involved five States, viz. Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and Chhattisgarh. The complete story of the effort to design and manufacture rocket launchers and rockets is quite interesting.
The Maoists, in their earlier avatar as the PW, constituted a technical team comprising Sande Rajamouli Krishna, a member of the Central Military Commission, who was later killed in an encounter, Akkiraju Hara Gopal Rama Krishna, Central Committee member and the then secretary of Andhra Pradesh State Committee, Sakhamuri Appa Rao Ravi, who later became the chief of the Maoist’s Military Intelligence Wing and was also killed in an encounter with the police, Matta Ravi Kumar Sreedhar, who, too, was killed in an encounter with the police.
The technical team nominated Thota Kumara Swamy Tech Madhu, a native of Warangal district, Andhra Pradesh, to carry forward the effort to design and manufacture rocket launchers and rockets. The first such piece was tested in the Malkangiri forests, Odisha, in 2003. After this, Tech Madhu was asked to proceed to Chennai and get the rocket launchers and rocket shells manufactured. The Maoists envisaged executing “Project Rocket Launchers” in two phases –– “Rocket Launchers – I” and “Rocket Launchers – II”. “Rocket Launchers – I” was a pilot project undertaken ahead of elections to the Andhra Pradesh State Legislative Assembly in 2004.
The plan was to manufacture 25 Rockets with launch pad (rocket launcher) at a cost of Rs 950 per rocket. In the process, five rockets each were distributed to Anantapur, Guntur and Nallamala. Five others were tested at Burugundala, Yerragondapalem mandal, Prakasam district, and five more were set aside for further trials in order to develop the next version. “Rocket Launcher – II” was a project for the development of shoulder-fired rockets and launcher.
These were tested in September/October 2004, again at Burugundala, by fastening the rocket to a tree in order to gauge its effective range, accuracy and impact. As one senior IPS officer told this researcher, in an interview in Hyderabad, in February 2007, “the Maoists, following the trials, were of the opinion that the rockets were neither effective enough nor accurate, but had nuisance value”. After the second set of trials, Tech Madhu was instructed to have 1,600 rockets and 40 rocket launchers manufactured.
Accordingly, he headed to Chennai and got 1,550 rockets and 40 rocket launchers manufactured. Tech Madhu was given Rs 35 lakh to execute the plan. These rockets (RPGs) might, presently, be having mere nuisance value. However, when the Maoists acquire the versatility to manufacture rockets which could be fired with accuracy, then their lethal impact would be enormous and mind boggling. Many strategic and static locations would come under threat with disastrous consequences.
http://www.idsa.in/idsacomments/Rock...vramana_100513


CRPF sets up camps to combat Maoist activities in Gaya
Gaya, May 11 (ANI): Troopers from the paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) set up camps along a crucial supply line of Maoists to combat their activities in the Gaya. The CRPF troopers have set up camp in the Sevara locality which lies along the border of the provinces of eastern Bihar and Jharkhand and is a haven for Maoist activities in the region. The troopers would use special equipments and weapons to counter the Maoists.
The locality is also strategic as it is directly connected to the Chakarbandha hilly region which is a major hideout for the Maoists and also paves way for them to travel neighbouring states like Jharkhand. “There is a lot of Maoist movement on this side. The road which runs from Meghara is their supply line. Setting up a camp along this line will affect their supply to a large extent. We can also get help in going into the Maoist hideouts in the hilly areas of Chakarbandha,” said P. K. Bharti, the CRPF deputy commandant and incharge of the camp.
http://www.newstrackindia.com/newsde...s-in-Gaya.html


Suguna released, but whereabouts unknown
Beecha Suguna alias Sangeetha, wife of Malla Raji Reddy, CPI (Maoist) central committee member, was released from Kakkanad prison on Wednesday. She was given bail by the Additional Sessions Court in a case for allegedly propagating Maoist ideology and harbouring Reddy in December 2008. According sources in the Kakkanad jail, she was released by 3 pm. “An advocate came here and took her to some place. We have no information where she went after being released. The bail was granted a few weeks ago but we received the bail order only on Monday. Within hours, we released her,” the sources said.
However the intelligence wing is on her trail on the suspicion that she could be engaged in some Maoist activities after leaving the jail. In the wake of Maoist activists being spotted in various parts of the state, intelligence officials have received an order to closely monitor her activities. Reddy, 63, also known as Sattenna, along with Suguna, was arrested from a house near Little Flower Hospital, Angamaly, in December 2007.
They were later handed over to the Special Task Force for Maoist operations from Andhra Pradesh. Muralidharan is the sole witness in the case. According to the police, leaflets propagating Maoism were recovered from the house. Suguna was handed over to the Kerala Police by the Maharashtra Police in January this year. She had been acquitted in nine cases registered in Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh on the suspicion that she was a Maoist activist.
http://newindianexpress.com/states/k...cle1581330.ece


Three landmines unearthed
During a combing operation, three landmines of low intensity were unearthed and defused on a village road between Tora and Jhirpani villages under Koida police limits of the Maoist-hit Bonai sub-division in Sundargarh district on Friday. Police said each of the landmines weighed around six kilograms. They were packed in tiffin boxes and fitted with detonators. Police claimed the mines were placed to specifically target security personnel engaged in combing operation on foot as vehicle do not ply on the interior road.
http://newindianexpress.com/states/o...cle1584709.ece

Source: http://www.signalfire.org/?p=24246