Maoist central leaders targeted by Cops

PW and Maoist merger a boon or bane?
By Udumula Sudhakar Reddy
In 2004 Peoples War the left wing extremist group operated in AP andMaoist CommunistCentre in Bihar and adjoining areas merged to form CPI Maoist. This isa significant stepthat change the scenario.Balladeer Gaddar says ,"the merger to form CPI Maoist made the issue anational onewith Centre coming into larger picture. Under the leadership of centreStates are workingin tandem. Use cell phones and modern technology also proved fatal forthe movement.Peace process with Naxals is not on the agenda of Y S Rajasekhar Reddyin the recentelections. There is a different between Chandra Babu Naidu's and YSRsrule in dealingwith Naxal issue. During Naidu's regime each and every activist iskilled. In YSRs ruleonly the top leaders are identified and they are finished off in thepast five years. Daysafter he took over the Top Maoist leader Patel Sudhakar Reddy was killed.,"Mr Gaddar added ,"there are no voices raised when central leaders likeChandra Moulifrom BC community are killed. They are all of our batch in early1970s. Those who gotvotes in the name of Telangana didn't speak out about these encounterkillings,""Killing the naxals is the policy of the centre and till the Naxalscarry the weapons theycontinue to do this," said Gaddar.Several top Maoists have already arrested or surrendered or killed inthe encounter.Raji Reddy, CPI Maoist State Committee secretary K Ialaiah aliasSambasivudu arearrested and Lanka Papi Reddy surrendered and Chandra Mouli andRajamouli, MastanRao were killed in the encounter. Earlier Maoist State CommitteeSecretary Madhav waskilled.According to Ministry of Home Affairs eighty per cent of Maoistsincidents were reportedfrom four States in Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa and Bihar.MHA opined that highest number of casualties are reported from Chattisgarh andJharkhand are mainly due to increase use of Improved Explosive devices.However in the State has shown drastically decreasing trend in theState from 2005. In2005 535 incidents of Naxal violence took place and 186 civilian, 161naxals and 22police are killed. In 2008 it deceased to 95 cases. They were cleared off fromNallamalais(adjoining Mahabubnagar, Nalgonda, Guntur and Prakasham) and NorthTelangana except in borders.In 2009 seven Maoists were killed in encounters including the two ofthem and sevencivilians are killed by Maoists including the latest incident onSaturday night atKhammam. During the recent elections there was no incident.The other Naxal groups like Janashakti, Praja Prathighatana and PrajaPandha arealmost wiped out in the State and centre. Targeting frontalorganisations and Naxalsympathisers also yielded good results for police in the State.CPI(ML) Janasakthi leader Kura Rajanna who was released from bailrecently said,"almost 99 per cent of leaders of such stature are killed in covertoperation or otheroperations and rarely killed in the battle field," He admitted thatgovernment and policehave got upperhand over the naxals.A senior police official of State police headquarters said ,"Naxalsissues are monitoredat the central level with regular meetings of empowered group ofMinster headed byUnion Home Minister, standing committee of all Chief Ministers ofNaxal affected statesand a Task Force headed by Special Secretary(internal security) comprising ofIntelligence officials,"Centre which asked all the States to form a reasonable component ofpolice as specialforce with commando training in jungle warfare have formed COBRA with CRPF.Sources said it will take one or two months for COBRA to becomeoperational. MHA hasdirected the States of sustained police action in Andhra model andthere shall be nopeace dialogue with the Naxals.According to MHA status paper in the past five years Rs 35 crore wasgiven to Andhra inthe past five years and Rs 34 crore to Chattisgarh and Rs 42 crore toJharkand and Rs23 crore to Orissa for Security Related expenditure. For modernisationof police in naxalaffected States AP was given Rs 424 crore."even central paramilitary forces are deployed on large scale. Atleast 36 companies aredeployed in the naxal affected States including 4 in the State," saidan official.Fact File1. In 2008 95 cases of extremist offences were registered in the Stateduring the year2008, compared to 124 cases in previous year, showing a decrease of23.38 per cent.2. Thirty seven extremist Murders were registered in 2008 as against same (in2007. Khammam district registered highest number of extremist murders (19)followed by Visakhapatnam Rural (6), Warangal(4) and Srikakulam &Vizianagaram(2 each).