Alarmed over unabated Naxal violence, the Centre and the state governments have decided to go after the top leadership of the Communist Party of India - Maoist through intelligence based operations. The decision was taken at a special session of chief ministers of Naxal affected states -- held in Delhi on Wednesday -- in the wake of the May 25 bloodbath in Chhattisgarh's Bastar that left 27 people, including top state Congress leaders, dead.
The central government will hold an all-party meeting this week to finalise a strategy to resolve the Maoist problem decisively in the wake of the audacious attack in Bastar that killed 27 people, including three prominent Congress leaders.
Did the Bharatiya Janata Party government in Chhattisgarh ignore the standard operating procedures in providing security to Congress leaders who were ambushed during their 'Parivartan Yatra' near the border of the Bastar-Sukma districts on Saturday evening?
'As long as you are talking about Adivasis in Bastar or the brutalisation of the State nobody raises an eyebrow. But the moment you talk about Kashmiri Pandits -- after all, we were a religious minority in Kashmir -- and how they being in a minority were targeted it doesn't go down well and no one speaks about it.' 'That is the saddest and most ironical aspect of this whole tragedy,' Rahul Pandita, a Kashmiri Pandit and author of Our Moon Has Blood Clots, a book that chronicles the plight of his community in the strife-torn Kashmir Valley, tells Prasanna D Zore/Rediff.com
The commission is still awaiting recorded statement of 20 other victims of sexual violence by the security personnel.
A one-day statewide bandh called by the Congress to protest against the Kanker rapes involving minor inmates of a government-run tribal girls' hostel was a complete success across Chhattisgarh on Wednesday.
The Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled Chhattisgarh government's move to offer class three and four jobs on compassionate grounds to the family members of senior Congress leaders killed in the May 25 Maoist attack in Bastar has landed in controversy with opposition terming it an insult and demanded an apology from the government.
Sources in the Intelligence Bureau and the National Investigation Agency claim that the Naxals had precise information about the movement of the Congress convoy, which came under attack on May 25, reports Vicky Nanjappa
Senior Congress leader Mahendra Karma's personal security officer, who was critically injured in the deadly Naxal attack in Bastar, succumbed to his injuries at a hospital in Raipur on Saturday, taking the death toll in the tragedy to 28.
'The whole idea is to intimidate lawyers like me and others who are helping the Adivasi women seek justice and file FIRs against the security personnel for raping them.'
A team of National Investigation Agency, probing the Naxal attack on Congress leaders in Chhattisgarh, on Tuesday visited the site where the ultras attacked the convoy returning from Parivartan rally.
A day after Maoists gunned down the founder of anti-Maoist militia Salwa Judum, Mahendra Karma, Prasanna D Zore spoke with Rahul Pandita, author of 'Hello, Bastar: The Untold Story of India's Maoist Movement', for his insights into what he terms as the ageing Maoist leadership's "one final push to their war against the State in their lifetime."
Senior Congress leader V C Shukla, who was injured after heavily-armed Maoists ambushed a convoy of party leaders in Chhattisgarh's Bastar district, was on Sunday airlifted to a hospital in Gurgaon near New Delhi from Raipur
Development and smart policing must go hand in hand in Chhattisgarh, says Sanjeev Nayyar who travelled through several Naxal affected regions of the state.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party is eyeing a fourth straight term in the tribal-dominated state as the opposition Congress seeks to return to power after 15 years.
The Centre and Chhattisgarh government will launch joint action against Maoists in Bastar in the days to come, Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde said after talks with Chief Minister Raman.
'This was long expected because Mahendra Karma was on the Maoists's hit list... I don't think the Maoists cared as much about the consequences as they cared about the fact that they had to get rid of Mahendra Karma. Whatever else they do or don't do now, they can say they have revenged Salwa Judum.' Sociologist Nandini Sundar on the Maoist massacre and its aftermath.
Ruling out the role of the army in fighting Naxal violence in the state, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh Monday admitted "security lapses" that led to the killing of key Congress leaders last weekend.
Former leader of opposition in Chhattisgarh assembly Mahendra Karma sustained minor injuries after his vehicle was blown up by suspected Naxalss in Dantewada district of the state, police said.
'Let Modi not be in the news, I will stop making cartoons on him.'
With the recovery of the bodies, the toll in the lethal Maoist attack on a convoy of Congress leaders on Saturday has climbed to 27, police sources said.
The high-pitched election speeches skipped corporate issues, unlike during the assembly polls about four months ago.
The commander, identified only as Podia, was on Tuesday gunned down by police in Dantewada district, 450km from Raipur, Superintendent of Police Kamlochan Kashyap told PTI.
Claiming responsibility for the deadly attack on a Congress convoy, Maoists on Tuesday said their main objective was to "punish" senior party leaders including Nand Kumar Patel and Mahendra Karma for their "anti-people" policies.
Suspected Naxals on Tuesday shot dead a 25-year-old trainee police constable in a crowded market place at Bhansi town in Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh, the police said.
The encounter, which took place in the jungles of Silger, a "liberated" Maoist zone between the naxal hotbed of Jagargunda and Basaguda in Dantewada, was launched on Thursday night by the CRPF from three directions.
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.
Naxals in Chhattisgarh are allowed to get married but they are forced by their senior leaders in undergoing vasectomy surgical procedure to prevent them from having children.
Maoists on Saturday abducted the collector of Sukma district in Bastar area of Chhattisgarh after killing two of his bodyguards. The left-wing ultras intercepted the vehicle of Sukma Collector Alex Paul Menon, an IAS officer, in Keralapal area of the district while he was returning from a programme, top police officials said.
'Adivasis are a critical national treasure, so we need to protect them.' 'The fight for the tribals of Chhattisgarh needs people from all political parties. It cannot be about any single political group.'
Two Naxals including a woman were arrested in Raipur with arms and ammunition including nearly 300 live cartridges, the police said.
The Chhattisgarh government has unleashed a "soft" tactic in its war against the Naxals - residential schools for poor children. Devjyot Ghoshal travels to Dantewada, Bastar and Sukma to see for himself
Would the Maoists lose the support of the middle-class and urban intelligentsia by continuing to use kidnapping as a propaganda tool? Dr P V Ramana analyses
70 per cent voting was recorded across 18 constituencies of Bastar and Rajnandgaon till 3 pm in the first phase of assembly election in Chhattisgarh, where violence by Naxals who have called for a poll boycott left a Central Reserve Police Force jawan dead.
Hidma Madavi, who had a Rs 12 lakh reward on his head, was arrested without a single bullet being fired.
Rahul Gandhi attacked the Bharatiya Janata Party government in Chhattisgarh for its failure to act against Maoists responsible for killing many Congress leaders in May.
'There is need to invent another enemy.' 'If you can add Maoists to Muslims, the tukde-tukde thread will tie in nicely.' 'You might even have a 'nation in grave danger' story by the summer of 2019,' notes Shekhar Gupta.
With Naxals watching the highways, cash to Bastar banks comes via copter.
A Chhattisgarh Armed Force jawan was killed by Naxals in Chhattisgarh's insurgency-hit Sukma district on Saturday. Constable Shivkumar Sidar was unwell for the last few days and was going for treatment to Dornpal from Temelwada in a bus where he was abducted by a group of Maoists and was killed, Inspector General, Bastar Range SRP Kalluri, said.
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