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On 24 January, speaking to The Times of India, Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) Director General Rajeev Rai Bhatnagar said:
Less than 24 hours later, the Maoists hit back. Four police personnel were killed by Maoists, who ambushed the 400-strong security team in a dense forest area in Narayanpur district of Chhattisgarh.
India's anti-Naxal security apparatus believes the footprint of Maoist influence has shrunk considerably, now largely restricted to four states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Odisha. It points out that from 75 districts in the country that reported naxal attacks in 2015, last year (2017) saw violence only in 58 districts.
In 2004, when the then YS Rajasekhara Reddy government invited the Maoists for peace talks, it gave the intelligence gathering units an opportunity to put a face to a name. With the Maoist belief that power flowed from the barrel of the gun, it was a given that the talks would fail sooner than later.
But by the time they did, it had given the Andhra police enough time to infiltrate the Maoist ranks and get specific intelligence tip-offs on the movements of armed squads.
For a decade now, Odisha has dealt with the Maoist menace, with its leadership imported from Andhra and foot soldiers recruited from the tribal hamlets of the state. But now, things are looking up with as many as six districts in Odisha reporting no Maoist activity. Incidents of Maoist violence too, have gone down – from 68 in 2016 to 52 in 2017.
But the areas bordering Chhattisgarh and Andhra continue to be ‘red zones’. The geographical factor – of dense forest area, lack of connectivity and roads – make this a safe haven for the Maoists. Stepping into Chhattisgarh’s Bastar district is like going back in time.
Maoist ‘sympathisers’ claim that 70 percent of south Chhattisgarh is under the control of these outlaws, which the state government can penetrate only if they are heavily armed.
Naxals have formed regional political councils in these villages, where their representatives are armed with country-made weapons. The police admit there are as many as 5,000 armed cadres, and another 20,000 sympathisers in the seven districts of south Chhattisgarh.
The so-called islands of government control are the heavily fortified CRPF camps, one every five kilometres along the dusty highway. The state in these parts of ‘war zone’ Bastar, is pretty much outsourced to the CRPF. They, along with the Chhattisgarh police, have the difficult task of guarding contractors who risk their lives to build roads through Maoist territories.
The districts that have seen Maoist surrenders, are those to which the state administration has managed to reach. This has been made possible by technology-aided real time intelligence gathering, use of drones and night vision glasses, that have helped the security forces push the Maoists deeper into the jungles.
Along with fissures in the Maoist ranks leading to surrenders and elimination of top guns, this has given the state the upper hand.
But not everyone is convinced that Left-wing extremism in India is indeed on its last legs. A security expert who was at the forefront of Naxal elimination from erstwhile united Andhra Pradesh told The Quint:
Maoists are also known to opt for strategic retreat when they find the going tough, in order to regroup and re-strategise. Which is why it would be erroneous to conclude, solely based on data of violence, that the state has been able to clear districts completely.
VS Krishna, Visakhapatnam-based secretary of the Human Rights Forum, who has a deep understanding of both Andhra-Odisha border and Chhattisgarh ‘theatres’ of conflict told The Quint:
But Krishna disagrees with the police theory that Maoists are now finding it difficult to get the support of people. He says:
The ‘red corridor’, that at one time extended from the Nepal border down to south Andhra Pradesh, has shrunk considerably.
However, it is necessary for the police approach to be accompanied by tribal-sensitive development, and not one solely decided and dictated by New Delhi.
(The writer is a senior journalist. He can be reached @Iamtssudhir. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)
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