With Maoist insurgents offering more lethal battles, police battalions will need a transformation to standards very close to infantry units. Even with the best equipment and training, they will not succeed if they do not have a dynamic leadership, writes Brigadier S K Chatterji (retd).
Give the adivasis honour and dignity and the pool of discontent in which the Maoists swim will dry up, writes Nitin Desai
Home Minister P Chidambaram should work more and speak less and control his "tone and tenor", Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said on Saturday.
According to the notice, "The conduct (wearing sunglasses) is in violation of the India Services (Conduct) Rules, Section (3), 1968."
We cannot say that development-related issues are long term while the immediate task is to annihilate the Naxalites.
Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik's office on Thursday received a fresh e-mail threat from suspected Maoists.According to the Orissa police, the e-mail threatened to carry out a Dantewada-type massacre in the state. This is the second e-mail threat received by the Orissa chief minister's office over the past fortnight. On March 27, the Orissa CMO received an e-mail threat, which warned about plans to blow up Patnaik's residence and important monuments in the state.
'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.'
Tuesday's Naxal attack at Dantewada, in which 75 security personnel were killed, is a sure wake up call for the authorities; and according to intelligence agencies, there will be more such attacks in the days to come. Reports Vicky Nanjappa
The CRPF and local police on anti-Naxal operations perform a thankless job but a few basic counter-insurgency measures could have prevented the deadly Dantewada attack, writes B Raman.
The first prime minister to visit this Maoist hotbed in three decades, Narendra Modi on Saturday asked Naxals to abjure gun and allow peace so that the macabre drama of death will end to pave the way for development.
Four jawans of the Central Industrial Force were killed and two others injured when their jeep was blown up in a landmine blast triggered by the Naxalites in Chhattisgarh's Dantewada district, the police said.
Krishnakumar P reports how a traumatised 'villager' led forces to the Maoist weapons manufacturing factory inside the forests of Chhattisgarh.
Ten persons, including two Central Reserve Police Force personnel and four special police officers, were killed on Wednesday in a landmine blast triggered by Naxals in Chhattisgarh's Dantewada district, police said.The incident took place at Sirguda village in Bastar region under Injram police station area, when Naxals blew up a tractor carrying the special police officers and jawans. The blast occurred when a joint patrol team was returning from their duty.
The toll is likely to mount, as more details were yet to emerge.
Counter insurgency operations alone will not end Naxalism as the government needs to address its "root cause", which is the issue of forests and land rights, former BSF Director General E N Rammohan, who probed the Dantewada killings last month, said Friday.
Are the recent attacks by Maoists desperate attempts to take the revolutionary struggle to a level which would precipitate a crisis in which it would be impossible for right thinking people not to take sides? asks Apooravanand.
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.
Vanvasi Chetna Asram founder Himanshu Kumar while reacting to the letter dashed by Chhattisgarh Governor ESL Naramsimhan to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday asking Union Home Minister P Chidambaram not to visit Naxal-hit areas in Raipur and Dantewada on January7, told rediff.com, "It means that the state government has something to hide."
In an unusual way, Governor of Chhatisgarh ESL Narasimhan wrote to Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh to resist the temptation of Union Home Minister P Chidambaram to visit Naxal affected areas in Raipur and Dandewada on January 7, 2010. During this visit P Chidambaram shall undertake a padayatra on Jan 7, 2009.
In the first operation of its kind in a long time, the Chhattisgarh state police, the Special Task Force and the Central Reserve Police Force launched a combined offensive against Naxalites in the forests spanning two highly Naxal-infested districts to register their first major success in many months.
"For me, they (Maoists) are no enemies at all. If they are under some wrong notions, we need to talk to them," Rao said in the Rajya Sabha, while participating in a debate on the Dantewada massacre.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday asked Home Minister P Chidambaram not to resign in the wake of Maoists' massacre of 76 security personnel in Dantewada, saying he should 'not show his back' as it would mean a victory for the Naxals.
After suffering a major blow at the hands of Maoists in Chhattisgarh, the Central Reserve Police Force on Friday said it will not let the blood of its men go waste and take the battle against the Left-wing extremists forward with a hardened resolve. "We will not let this blood go waste. I pledge to carry forward the battle," CRPF Special Director General (North) N K Tripathi said at the force's Valour Day event in New Delhi.
The Centre on Wednesday announced ex-gratia payment of Rs 15 lakh for kin of each of the 75 Central Reserve Police Force men killed in the Naxal attack on Tuesday in Chattisgarh's Dantewada district.
The incident took place late evening at Kokanara village, nearly 375 km from Raipur, Inspector General of Police (Bastar Range) T J Longkumer said.
Chhattisgarh House rule says that anyone entering the well of the House would be automatically suspended.
Police sources said bodies of Jagargunda Station House Officer Hemant Singh and four others were recovered from the area
Cops said during interrogation, they admitted to their involvement in the attack.
Chhattisgarh: Three naxals killed in encounter
Painting a gloomy picture of the human rights situation in India, Amnesty International on Wednesday alleged that there had been gross violation of human rights, including in Nandigram in West Bengal, and sought abolition of capital punishment.
The final rites of late Congress leader and founder of controversial anti-Maoist Salwa Judum movement Mahendra Karma were performed with state honours at his native village in Dantewada district on Monday.
But the rebels were well-prepared and violence started almost simultaneously with the voting. Indiscriminate firing from the Maoists disrupted polling in two booths, while an improvised explosive device blast left three policemen injured in another. The Naxalites triggered the blast in Borkha village under Bhejji police station limits in Dantewada. A helicopter has been requisitioned to evacuate the three injured, police sources said
Ahead of Congress President Sonia Gandhi and BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi's rallies in Chhattisgarh on Wednesday, security forces averted a possible landmine explosion, as they diffused two Improvised Explosive Devices weighing 50 kg in the Dantewada area of the state.
Maoists killed three policemen and looted their sophisticated weapons whereas five others are still missing with weapons in Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh, a top police officer said.
All the 12 policemen, who went missing after an encounter with Maoists in Chhattisgarh's Dantewada forests, have been killed by the extremists, police sources said on Friday.
Tribals in the Bastar region of Chhattisgarh have never been worshippers of Lord Ram. But now, they greet the visitors with Jai Shri Ram, thanks to a well-executed campaign of the saffron brigade in the Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled state. The Katoli relief camp in Dantewada district, housing tribals deserting their habitats following Naxal terror, stands witness to this rapid transformation among the tribals.
These villages don't have citizens and hence there is no National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme for them or any health services or cheap rations.
DIG Vishwaranjan and a top CRPF official said there were no casualties from the security personnel team.
Taking a tough line, Home Minister Ram Vichar Netam, who reviewed the situation after visiting the jail, said if any jail personnel were involved, they would not only be terminated from service, but would also be arrested and tried.
Four persons, including two special police officers, were killed on the spot and four others seriously injured in a landmine blast triggered by Naxalites in Dantewada district early on Thursday.
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