India has launched a major offensive codenamed 'Operation Green Hunt' against Maoist rebels in Chhattisgarh on Thursday. The assault 'Green Hunt' was launched against insurgents in Chhattisgarh--the epicentre of violence between Maoist fighters, security forces and pro-government militias since 2005.
To win the war against the Maoist insurgency, the underlying issues of tribal alienation needs to be addressed first, writes Shyam G Menon.
It is necessary to make incremental progress, state by state, rather than aiming for an illusory knock-out punch against the Maoists, write Dr Shanthie Mariet D'Souza and Dr Bibhu Prasad Routray.
'Every report I filed for Rediff.com on the professor's incarceration, would leave me wondering for days, at the depth of the State's malevolence towards this disabled professor, and his equally deep capacity to tolerate it,' recalls Jyoti Punwani.' 'No country in the world would do what our country was doing to someone so helpless.'
Raising pitch to suspend operation Green Hunt, Naxal sympathiser and Telegu poet Varavara Rao on Sunday dubbed Maoist leader Kishenji's encounter as a "political murder".
'A demonstration of the force by the State will wean away a large portion of sympathisers. The hardcore ideologically motivated cadres are not likely to be affected by this, but it will ease the path of the impending operations by lowering the morale of the Naxal rank and file and raising that of the police forces as well as common people.'
'After Father Stan Swamy's death one thing has become very clear, that if you fight for justice in India you will be called a Maoist by the State.'
In the deadliest attack on security forces, Maoists trapped and gunned down 76 security personnel during Operation Green Hunt, an offensive against the Left-wing extremists, on Tuesday morning in the thick forests of Mukrana in Dantewada district of Chattisgarh.
In the deadliest attack on security forces, Maoists trapped and gunned down 76 security personnel during Operation Green Hunt, an offensive against the Left-wing extremists, on Tuesday morning in the thick forests of Mukrana in Dantewada district of Chattisgarh.
Four policemen were injured in an attack by Naxals, who first triggered a landmine blast and then opened fire at them in Sukma district in Bastar region of Chhattisgarh during their 'Bharat Bandh' on Wednesday, police said.
'Sanction serves the salutary object of providing safeguard to the accused from unwarranted prosecution and the agony and trauma of trial, and in the context of the stringent provisions of the UAPA, is an integral facet of due process of law.' If the report to the sanctioning officer for the first five accused in the case lacked the qualities required under the law, then for Professor Saibaba, the sanction came much after his trial had started!
Maoists on Sunday demanded release of eight of their jailed leaders in Chattisgarh and a halt to "Operation Green Hunt" in exchange for freedom of Sukma collector Alex Paul Menon, who was safe, a day afer he was abducted. The Maoists also set an April 25 deadline.
His spine, his heart, his pancreas -- one by one, all his organs have weakened, given the lack of medical treatment in jail, where he is kept in the notorious Anda cell. Continuous pain, frequent fainting spells, urinary problems, have all become part of his life.
Unless the Naxals put a stop to violence, Operation Green Hunt will continue, Union Home Minister P Chidambaram told mediapersons at Kolkata's Writers' Building on Tuesday.
'The government needs to take a leaf from the manual of the Maoists, to be slow and calculated in the way it builds up its response. It is clear that in the hurry to mitigate the menace, some serious compromises have been made.'
'When Maoists say that a protracted, violent, armed way is the only way to capture power then what is the way out except confronting them as a state,' asks Chhattisgarh DGP Vishwa Ranjan.
In an open letter to the children of Bihar's Aurangabad district, Maoists have apologised for attacking their schools, four months after hundreds of students urged them to stop destroying their educational institutions. After targeting Railway property and police forces, Maoists now have schools on their radar. Maoists in Bihar have attacked nearly half a dozen schools in the last five days.The attacks follow the initiation of Operation Green Hunt against them.
Maoists in a bid to thwart the 'Operation Green Hunt' launched against them damaged two vehicles including one belonging to the police and created road blockades by cutting down trees in Visakha Agency area of Andhra Pradesh on Saturday, police said.
Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee has said there are no Maoists in West Bengal. Addressing a press conference in Kolkata on Thursday, Banerjee claimed there are about 200 camps of the Communist Party India-Marxist, which have unleashed violence across the state.
'Because of the paucity of force, we have to be extremely creative in your ops. You can't go for an all out war,' says Chhattisgarh DGP Vishwa Ranjan.
Forty personnel from the Central Reserve Police Force, involved in Operation Green Hunt, were killed on Tuesday morning when they walked into a trap laid by Maoists at Dantewada district in Chhattisgarh.The attack took place when a CRPF patrol party was returning from a road opening duty in the Naxalite-infested Mukrana forest in the district, at approximately 6 am. The CRPF patrol party was totally taken aback by the Maoists.
The attacks follow the initiation of Operation Green Hunt against the Naxals by the government.
Sodi Sambo can now have her treatment done in New Delhi. Five days after the 28-year-old tribal woman from Gompad village in Dantewada district was detained by the Chhattisgarh government on suspicious grounds, the Supreme Court on Friday directed the state administration to permit her to travel to New Delhi.
Breaking the long lull in their activities in Andhra Pradesh, Maoists on Monday struck in the tribal areas near Visakhapatanam district and burnt two buses, after forcing the passengers to get down. The attack took place in the wake of the two-day long strike called by Maoists to protest Operation Green Hunt, which began in three states today morning. A group of armed Maoists attacked the two buses at Lankapakala village under G K Veedhi Mandal of Visakhapatanam.
The five young police officers -- Avinash Mohanty of Bijapur, Amresh Kumar Mishra of Dantewada, Rahul Bhagat of Narayanpur, Ajay Yadav of Kanker and Sundarraj P of Bastar -- have engaged more local people into the operations and are reaping rich dividends in steeming the naxal tide.
'Stan's death is the culmination of a series of acts of abominable cruelty on the part of the Indian State.'
The Communist Party of India - Maoist, which had claimed responsibility for the May 25 attack that left many Chhattisgarh Congress leaders dead, on Thursday denied that the incident had any political link.
'People are beaten at the slightest provocation, paraded completely naked and then tortured. Did you know the number of prison deaths is the highest in Maharashtra? The one year I was in jail, 98 prisoners died.' 'The judges did warn the jail authorities, but they didn't care. They even violated the high court's order regarding my treatment. One judge asked my lawyer: "Can I go and implement my orders there?"' Professor G N Saibaba, who is 90 per cent handicapped, speaks of his ordeal in a Nagpur jail after being arrested for protesting against the Centre's anti-Naxal and anti-Adivasi campaign.
Banned outfit Communist Party of India-Maoist Tuesday claimed responsibility for the massacre of Congress leaders in Bastar region and demanded immediate suspension of all operations against it across the country.
'He is in a wheelchair, his joints are swollen and he is in great pain.' A Ganesh Nadar/Rediff.com speaks to colleagues and students of the polio-afflicted Delhi University Professor G N Saibaba, who was arrested on May 9 for alleged Naxalite links.
The roots of the problem lies in the alienation of the tribals. Extreme sensitivity is required to tackle the issues involved. Rough and ready methods of using force may prove counterproductive in the long run, says Colonel (retd) Anil Athale.
'If a Delhi University professor's rights can be violated so easily, then think about what the rest of the population, with even lesser means, has to suffer under the State.'
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