Sunday 8 November 2009

Maoists spread out in 'Red corridor' to engage security forces

By U Sudhakar Reddy
CPI Maoist armed cadres are now distributed in different key areas of the "red corridor" in India, in order to make it more difficult for the police who have to engage them simultaneously in different war zones.
Sources in the state police said that platoons of the People's Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA) and others are now scattered in different states to launch an offensive simultaneously.
The Centre has given additional paramilitary forces, the COBRA and CRPF, to the states and their deployment has begun. An official at the state police headquarters explained, "When we analyse their documents over the past four to five months, we find that they are deployed in more places to see that the security forces are not concentrated in a specific area like Dandakaranya."
The recent offensive and killings in North Telangana indicate their strategy. Says a senior IPS official involved in anti-Naxal operations, "They don't want to face the police in the Andhra-Orissa border (AOB), so they have started an offensive in North Telangana. AOB, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, the Jharkhand-Bihar border, Gadchiroli in Maharasthra and North Telangana are now the key areas where trouble from Maoists is anticipated."
The tactical retreat and movement of Naxal companies to less affected areas is part of the strategy says the police. "They want to resort to one or two murders and get out," observed an official. There are six to eight companies of the PLGA in Dandakaranya in Chhattisgarh and on the AOB. "The hype over the Abhujmad operation in Chhattisgarh may be another reason for distribution of Maoist forces," said the official.
Maoists have been claiming that 4,000 CRPF, BSF and STF and Greyhounds forces and 400 commandos of COBRA are now engaged in an offensive in Dandakaranya. CPI Maoist central committee spokesperson Azad says that a unified command was set up to co-ordinate the police forces of seven states besides the central forces. (Include West Bengal in Map)

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