The resurfacing of a strong Maoist urban network in the cities of Chhattisgarh has enabled the rebels to gain considerable ground in the past three months, intelligence sources have revealed.
"Most of the recent attacks, including the devastating strike in Rajnandgaon where the superintendent of police was killed, have been in or near towns and cities.
"Following this, we have come to learn that a strong urban network has resurfaced in the cities and towns like Raipur, Bhilai and Durg," a senior intelligence officer told rediff.com.
"We have information that they are also establishing themselves in cities in states like Uttar Pradesh and HAryana and cities like Delhi and Mumbai," the officer said.
While the Centre is said to keen on launching an offensive in the state's 4000 sq-km forest of Abujmaad, said to be the Maoist headquarters, many regions of Chhattisgarh have been slowly slipping into the hands of the rebels.
The state police, who had registered several successes against the Maoists till the November 2008 state elections, have been suffering a string of reversals in the recent months.
"Their urban network is the bedrock on which their success in the jungles and rural areas has been built. This network has been supplying all logistics right from clothes to arms and ammunition," the officer said.
The state police claim that one of the main reasons for their success last year lay in busting an urban network of the rebels.
"We broke a network in December-January. While we thought we had busted their urban network, we realized that there was a second parallel network operating. This network quickly went underground after the crackdown," the officer said.
"We soon learnt that the reason we were clueless about this network was that there was absolutely no contact at the lower levels between these two. The contact between the two networks was only at the highest levels," the officer added.
Intelligence agencies say they have reason to suspect that the network that had gone underground has resurfaced is the main reason why the Maoists are able to wreak havoc.
"We now have enough reasons to suspect that there is now a third parallel network operating to replace the one that we busted," the officer said.
More than the attacks what has the security forces worried are a couple of incidents where arms and ammunitions were found in lakes in prominent towns.
Incidents: Durg, Bhilai arms haul. These were definitely meant for the Maoists. When the conduits grew suspicious of police movement, they dumped the live ammunition in a pond and fled," he said.
In June, several bags containing live cartridges were discovered in a drying pond. There were a total of 300 live cartridges for .12 and .315 bore rifles. This capped a series of incidents were live ammunition were recovered from many towns across the state.
"They usually use .12 and .315 rifles. And the fact that there have been attacks in and around the districts where the ammunition was found is no coincidence," the officer said.
Urban networks fall under a gray area in the fight against Naxalism. Those accused of being part of the Maoists urban network are not involved in violence. And more often than not they belong to legitimate organizations. It is hard to say if the police is harassing a genuine activist or whether the particular person was really involved.
But security experts say that urban networks will be a big threat to the security forces in the coming years. P V Ramana, a research fellow at the Delhi-based Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, in a recent paper on urban movements published on July 10, said: "In the Maoist scheme of things the objectives/tasks of the Urban Movement could be classified under three broad heads or categories: (a) mobilise and organise the basic masses and build the party on that basis; (b) build the United Front; and (c) Military tasks."