MAOIST INSURGENCY - TWO REPORTS AND THE BLAMEGAME

Here's one of the reports on Times Now on the story -
http://www.timesnow.tv/Maoist-attack-IB-note-accessed-warnings-ignored/videoshow/4428394.cms

TIMES NOW on Monday (May 27) accessed two very crucial documents of the Ministry of Home Affairs, which talks about how the Centre had alerted the LWE affected States including Chattisgarh about a possible attack by naxals and the subsequent lackadaisical approach adopted by the States, which resulted in the Darbha Ghat-type attack.

The first Document, dated 27 may 2013 mentions that the Ministry of Home Affairs had repeatedly advised the LWE affected States to take adequate security measures during the TCOC period of the CPI Maoists where the political leaders are specifically targeted. Noticeably, this report says that the Maoists resorted to such attacks like what we saw in Darbah Ghat to recapture national media space to motivate their own cadres. While it is clear that the Centre has passed the buck onto the State of Chattisgarh, putting the onus on the State for not having put adequate counter offensive and defensive measures to curb naxal activism, Chattisgarh continues to maintain that fighting naxalism is a joint effort by both the State and the Centre and that the State cannot alone be held responsible for all calamities resulting from Maoist activism.

The second document dated 10 Jan 2013 mentions about the 9^th Party Congress of the erstwhile CPI (ML-PW) in 2001 where they passed a resolution to conduct a TCOC i.e  the Tactical Counter Offensive Campaign. This practice - as per the Centre’s report – was continued by the unified CPI Maoists since 2007. The report goes on to say “the TCOC is normally conducted during the summer season and the preparations for this event and the final conclusion is during the months of February to June. The preparation includes mobilization of cadres and intensive training under simulated conditions. During such intensive training of large congregations of Maoist cadres, small teams are sent to different areas to divert attention of security forces. During the actual TCOC, the Maoists attack police stations, outposts, foot patrol, CAPF camps, jails where cadres are imprisoned , so called police informers and political targets”.

It is this letter and the subsequent routine yearly alerts sent out by the Intelligence Bureau, which the Centre is harping on. While the Centre says that there were alerts which States like Chattisgarh ignored, the question is what really happened to the Centre’s comprehensive policy on naxalism and its unified hostage policy? While both the Centre and the State squabble over the Darbah incident, the hard fact is that the LWE affected regions in the country still face problems of connectivity, infrastructure, poverty, unemployment and more than anything else gross neglect from the part of our government machinery both at the Centre and the State. While the Maoist terrorists needs to be dealt with using an iron hand, development alone can bring back the confidence of the people of these regions on the elected representatives of our system.

by Prema Sridevi