Mahendra Kumawat has a lifetime experience of dealing with Maoists, terrorists and other militancy. He explains why the fight against the Maoists will be a long and arduous one.
'Their Maoism is a facade only to become leaders in society,' argues former IPS officer Mahendra Kumawat, who has extensively dealt with Naxalites.
From Naxalbari to Jan Militia, the Naxal movement has assumed worrying proportions today. Veteran cop Mahendra Kumawat assesses the Naxal phenomena and states that negating the romantic appeal of Maoism and convincing the teeming millions that their problems would be addressed could lead to a lasting solution to the Naxal issue.
'Generally people say the terrorists come from madrasas or slums. But that is not the case. Those who have been recently nabbed, they had very good schooling in towns of India and there are some technocrats and IT-savvy people. By and large women are generally not found in the modules, or in planting or making of bombs'
'When fire has erupted all around your house, how can you have the luxury of a cool home? We have Pakistan and Bangladesh where 67 blasts took place in 2005. In Nepal they had huge insurgency, now Maoists have come to power. In Sri Lanka, what people called the most deadly terrorists outfit, the LTTE, is there'
The threat posed by the burgeoning Maoist movement is grave and if it is not controlled in time, the Indian democracy could be in serious danger, believes Mahendra Lal Kumawat, former director general of the Border Security Force and former special secretary (internal security).
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