Maoists warn Chhattisgarh against recruiting ex-rebels

Monday, May 8th, 2006

Raipur - The Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) has warned the Chhattisgarh government against recruiting former rebels and police informers as special police officers (SPOs).

‘The Chhattisgarh government is responsible for a spurt in violence and the killings of civilians and SPOs. If the government really wants an end to violence, it must stop recruiting SPOs and wind up the salwa judum (anti-Maoist campaign),’ said Gudsa Usendi, a spokesman of the Dandkaranya Special Zonal Committee, which is a unit of the CPI-Maoist.

He sent a written statement to local media organisations and press representatives working in Bastar district headquarters, Jagdalpur, Sunday.

The state government launched ’salwa judum’ last year in June under the leadership of Congress leader Mahendra Karma.

Later, the government decided to appoint surrendered Maoists and informers as SPOs on a monthly pay of Rs.1,500 and provide them with sophisticated arms.

The SPOs were to help the police and paramilitary forces in targeting Maoists hideout in the thick-forested region of Bastar that includes the worst hit Dantewada district.

Usendi has asked SPOs to resign from their posts and not cooperate with the government in anti-insurgency operations or be ready to face punishment.

Maoist rebels dominate in Chhattisgarh’s half of the total 16 districts and officials say at least 135 people, mostly tribals, have been killed in the state since January this year in spiralling Maoist violence.

Source : India eNews.com

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• MAOISTS

Malkangiri in the grip of Maoist fear

Malkangiri in the grip of Maoist fear

Statesman News Service
MALKANGIRI, May 4: People in Malkanagiri town and the suburban areas are panicking after 15 villagers were massacred by the outlawed ultras in Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh bordering Malkanagiri.
People of Naxalite-prone Kalimela, MV-72, MV-79, Podia, Motu, Chitrakonda, Poteru, Gomphakonda, Gumka, Badighata and Marigata live in fear. Government officials never move in the Maoist-hit areas fearing ultras.
The “clay-more mines” and “pressure bombs” planted by the radicals on the state highway and the village road are creating panic.
Maoists are one step ahead of the local police as far as the recce is concerned. Maoists have prepared the diagram with regard to the location of police armoury, jail and other vital installations in Malkanagiri town.
Information on police movement is also being collected by the radicals and they are able to maintain a safe distance from the police who comb the forest.
Police and Intelligence officers could not reach the town to collect information on Naxalite movement due to the security threat posed by the ultras.
The radicals are well equipped with sophisticated machines to gather information about the town through the quickest possible means.
The local people say police surveillance on the Naxalites is a total failure. Senior police officials have often said that all possible steps are being taken to boost the morale of the cops to fight the Naxalites.
But the transfer system existing in the Malkangiri district is adversely affecting the morale of the police.
There are many officers and police personnel who were posted in the Naxalite-prone district without any transfer for years.

Source : The Statesman

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• MAOISTS
• COMMUNIST-CRIMES

NGO's funding Maoists

Top cop worried over NGO fundings
Anupam Dasgupta
Friday, May 05, 2006 23:50 IST

The police are worried over NGOs and social action groups funnelling funds to Naxalite coffers.

Speaking to DNA on Friday, director general of police PS Pasricha said the police were trying to track down the funding sources. “It’s an unfortunate development; something with extremely serious ramifications. We are going all out to plug the trend.”

The DNA reported on May 1 that 57 NGOs and social groups across the city were blacklisted by the state intelligence department for aiding Naxalite and Maoist insurgents. The top cop’s concern stems from the fact that several among the blacklisted groups have been found to be cash-rich.

Senior officers feel there could be a bigger problem if the Left-wing extremists managed to develop a “support structure” in the city.

Source : Daily News and Analysis, Mumbai

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• MAOISTS

Party waves the sickle, cuts off cash crops from Kerala farmers

Communists have started harassing farmers in Kerala.

Party waves the sickle, cuts off cash crops from Kerala farmers


The Party can change the profile of a beedi cooperative and get it to make pickles but the farmer cannot change his crop to make profit. If a Kerala farmer quits growing paddy and grows another crop on the same farmland, he will have CPI(M) comrades landing with sickles and axes to ‘restore’ the farm for paddy.

No matter if growing paddy is just not profitable, no matter if you have stiff farm loans to pay back.

Last week in Palakkad, the comrades, chanting slogans invoking hardliner V S Achuthanandan, descended to destroy arecanut and other crops in many farms. About a dozen of them have been booked for it.

The sickles and axes have been coming down on many parts of Kerala’s ruralscape as a strong ‘corrective’ political statement, right from the ’90s. They continue to swing.

The late A Kanaran MLA, top honcho of the CPI(M)’s Kerala State Karshaka Thozhilali Union (KSKTU), had effectively used it to get local Muslim landlords in north Kerala’s Nadapuram belt to fall in line, his men laying waste acres of their standing cash crops overnight.

In Alappuzha, Kanaran’s hardline guru and Politburo member Achthanandan unleashed his men on paddy farms whose owners—many of them marginal farmers—had to switch to other crops. It finally took a high court order to get the cops to halt the destruction, at least temporarily.

The basic CPI(M) line is that losing paddy to less labour-intensive cash crops means more rural unemployment, particularly hitting farm labour, traditional Red reservoir. It also wants to hold up the ecology-environment threats from depleting farmlands. The area under paddy in Kerala has dwindled from 8 lakh hectares a few years ago to 3 lakh now.

The flip side, however, is that with highly trade-unionised wages shooting up and input costs rising, paddy is hardly attractive anymore. A big chunk of farmers who had killed themselves in despair in the last two years in Kerala were paddy growers.

A few days back, Achuthanandan was quoted saying that chopping down crops on reclaimed paddy fields was ‘‘party policy,’’ but denies it. The powerful reformist section of the CPI(M), openly gunning for him, denounced it. Achuthanandan now says the party will continue its ‘‘peaceful’’ agitation in every Kerala panchayat, and will not allow any more fields to be lost to paddy, ‘‘at any cost.’’ ‘‘I’d never asked our comrades to destroy any kind of crops, only to oppose paddy field reclamation. But our young men get excited and naughty sometimes,’’ Achuthanandan told The Indian Express.

‘‘The party condemns any act of destroying crops. This has been communicated to the ranks,’’ claims M A Baby, CPI(M) central committee member.

Party waves the sickle, cuts off cash crops from Kerala farmers (The Indian Express, Monday July 4 2006, via Yahoo News)

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• COMMUNIST-CRIMES
• CPM

All’s not well in the world of Naxalites

MUMBAI: A diary written by a top Maoist guerrilla and in possession of DNA reveals that all is not well in the world of Naxalites.

The diary, which was seized from a hideout of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) guerrilla by the Jharkhand Police, reveals deep discontent among the cadre.

One noting in the 17-page diary says: “Rivalry is there between the cadre of Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and West Bengal... all internal problems should be solved through discussion in a family-like manner.” The diary also notes that commanders do not take care of their comrades and juniors.

“Commanders do not pay proper attention to their sick comrades,” it says. “To make matters worse casteism has infiltrated the rank and file of the guerrilla units.” The diary also notes the “regular quarrels” among units and says,
“On some occasions the comrades blamed others for their blind addiction to liquor.”

The diary notes the objections that were raised about the way some commanders behaved with their female counterparts in platoon political committee meetings. There is a need to maintain and sustain discipline among the ground-level fighters for the sake of carrying the movement forward, the diary notes.

Apart from tracking dissensions within the cadre, the diary also reveals how homemade weapons are made. One such noting says, “The guerrillas are advised to soak bamboo sticks in human excreta and keep it hidden and pointed at the enemy, as it is believed that injury caused by the poles would be fatal. These are subsidiary ways of warding off the police and other members of the paramilitary force.”

The diary clearly spells out the guerrilla strategy, which emphasises effective movement, ambush tactics and reconnaissance. “During the recce the cadre should concentre on eliciting detail of the strengths and weaknesses of the police sentry posts in that area and permanent installations like buildings,” it notes.

The review report of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), a copy of which is with DNA, reveals a 77 per cent increase in police casualties from attacks by the Maoist-Naxalites, as compared to last year.

All’s not well in the world of Naxalites (DNA,Monday, May 01, 2006)

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• MAOISTS

Red letters land in capital

Two leaflets threatening to avenge the death of Maoist “martyrs” and exhorting junior policemen to join the rebels landed in newspaper offices here today.

First, copies of a four-page unsigned leaflet from the CPI(Maoist) was delivered in newspaper offices and some homes in Bhubaneswar and Cuttack. Then, a letter from Sunil, state secretary (organisation) of the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA) landed on the desks of journalists this afternoon.

The leaflets have come three weeks after the Naxalites released two police officials, held hostage after the R. Udaygiri attack, asking them to leave the “oppressive police force”.

Chief minister Naveen Patnaik initially denied that the government had received any leaflets from the Maoists. But home secretary Santosh Kumar said he has asked police to investigate the veracity of the twin documents.

Kumar said the contents of the leaflets were being scrutinised to confirm their source. The possibility of Maoists choosing urban centres in central Orissa as their base cannot be ruled out as a central intelligence report had earlier warned of the same, he added.

However, there is no reason to panic as precautionary measures have been taken, the official assured.

The chief minister said “precautionary measures have been taken at all vulnerable places across the state”.

To counter possible rebel attacks, 83 police stations and six jails in the Naxalite-affected areas of Malkangiri, Rayagada, Koraput, Sambalpur, Rourkela and Baripada would be fortified.

The leaflets, copies of which are available with The Telegraph, urged the people to “celebrate” the R. Udaygiri raid in Gajapati district and asked the police to join the struggle for “liberation”.

The unsigned appeal said the March 24 attack was orchestrated by the PLGA, which looted about two dozen self-loading rifles, one AK-47, grenade launcher, light machine gun, 9-mm pistol and .38 revolver each, two carbines and country guns each, 10 grenades and ammunition.

It also claimed that a couple of PLGA activists from Andhra Pradesh — Narayan Goud alias Suresh and Mohan alias Satish — were killed during the attack. The raid was part of its movement to set up a “new democratic set-up”, the Maoist leaflet stated.

“The police are not our target and we don’t intend to attack them either. At R. Udaygiri, we had urged the OSAP men to lay down their arms. Since they did not heed, we had to attack them,” said the leaflet, which also had a section on how the state had been targeting tribals.

The second piece of Maoist literature accused the police of having used guile to shoot three Naxalites while they were asleep at Validiha village under Riamal police station and looting Rs 2 lakh and a revolver from three PLGA members. It urged the masses to join the armed struggle.

Director of state intelligence and additional director-general of police Manmohan Praharaj said similar leaflets were distributed after a recent clash in Nayagarh’s Ranapur between villagers and tribals over a cashew plantation.

Admitting that manpower was a problem, Kumar said 915 constables and havildars would be recruited for deployment in the rebel-hit areas.

Red letters land in capital (The Telegraph, Friday, April 28, 2006)

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• MAOISTS

Railway project delayed by Maoist vandalism

Railway project delayed by Maoist vandalism
Ranchi: The ambitious Rs.11 billion Koderma-Hazaribagh-Ranchi railway project in Jharkhand is being delayed by Maoist guerrillas, say officials.

Hardly 15 percent of the work on the 200-km railway project has been completed, a decade after work on it began during former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's regime.

"The project is getting delayed for many reasons but the most vital cause is Maoist violence. The Maoist rebels have destroyed property worth Rs.30 million in one of the three segments in which work is on," said a railway official.

"The damage was done in the last six months," he added.

"The contractors who have been assigned the jobs complain of monetary demands from the Maoists. Failure to pay means damage to properties," he said.

The railways also blame the state government for its failure to provide adequate security to contractors to complete the project.

The project, a joint venture of the railway ministry and the state government, would link Hazaribagh and Koderma with the state capital Ranchi.

Railway project delayed by Maoist vandalism (New Kerala)

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• MAOISTS
• COMMUNIST-CRIMES

Seven Maoists arrested in Patna

PATNA: Seven Maoists were arrested here on Tuesday for their involvement in a major attack on a bank and a police station in Bihar's Vaishali district last week.

A joint team of Patna police and the Special Task Force arrested the guerrillas.

Police said the arrests were a major breakthrough in their ongoing combing operations following the attack in Jandaha block of Vaishali last Friday.

Over 100 armed Maoist guerrillas had attacked Jandaha block with the aim of looting arms and ammunition from the police station and cash from a branch of Canara Bank. The Maoists injured a policeman and a bank guard, but failed to take away any arms or cash.

It was the first such Maoist attack in Vaishali district, which is not regarded as a Maoist-hit area.

Seven Maoists arrested in Patna (Times Of India, 02May2006)

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• MAOISTS

CPI wants India to release Maoist leaders

NEW DELHI: The Communist Party of India on Sunday said India should consider extending economic assistance to Nepal on the request of the new Government as also the release of Nepali Maoist leaders who were imprisoned in the country.

``If the new Nepal Government appeals to India, our Government should take positive steps to free the 60-70 Maoist leaders as it would further cement ties between the two countries,'' party leader Atul Kumar Anjaan said here.

Mr. Anjaan said the CPI and other parties would take up these issues with the Government here.

CPI wants India to release Maoist leaders (The Hindu)

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• COMMUNIST-CRIMES
• CPI
• MAOISTS
• COMINTERN

Maoists slit the throats of villagers ask them to drink urine

Freed villagers recall Maoist mayhem
R. KRISHNA DAS

Dantewada, April 30: Manikonta is silent, but not in mourning.

The sleepy village in Dantewada, 550 km south of the state capital and 30 km north of the Konta block headquarters, is silent because there is nobody left in its huts.

After losing 15 fellow-villagers to Maoists for supporting the government’s Salwa Judum campaign, residents of the hamlet do not want to stay in Manikonta for fear of more rebel raids.

The return of 35 villagers after their abduction last Tuesday did little to lift the spirits. Their recollections have only added to the fears of the villagers.

Recalling what they had seen during captivity, the villagers said their captors “selected” 13 hostages, tied their hands from behind and blindfolded them. Then, the rebels stabbed them repeatedly before slitting their throats. The other villagers could only watch in horror.

After the carnage, the Maoists allowed 35 villagers, all of whom had been staying in the Errabore government relief camp, to go. They wanted the latter to deliver the stern “message” to other villagers and the authorities.

The freed tribals told police that the Maoists did not give them food or even water. They were taken to the Kosaguda and Tonaiguda forests, the hostages added.

“When they wanted water, they were asked to drink urine,” a police official quoting the villagers’ statement as saying, while speaking to The Telegraph.

Rambhawan Kushwaha, member of the Dornapal janpad panchayat, alleged that “the villagers were mercilessly assaulted with lathis and sticks.” “It was savage and the tribals were butchered like animals. The rebels were so cruel that they did not even spare the villagers after death and planted “bombs” below them.”

The bodies were buried near Errabore today as the victims’ relatives refused to take them back to their village.

On Friday morning, the police recovered two more bodies. Some villagers had spotted them the previous night and informed the police.

Even as the villagers were trying to recover from the shock that seems to have changed their lives forever, the rebels struck again yesterday afternoon when they picked up three persons from Manikonta. After this, police parties from various points stepped into the forests in search of the villagers.

As the wait for their return continued, the abducted trio emerged from the forest this afternoon, much to the relief of the police.

The villagers told Dornapal police on their return that the rebels beat them up and warned of dire consequences if they did not withdraw from the anti-Maoist campaign.

Freed villagers recall Maoist mayhem (The Telegraph)

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• MAOISTS
• COMMUNIST-CRIMES

Two CPM groups clash

Two CPM groups clash

Statesman News Service
KOLKATA, May 1: Poll-related violence continued unabated in West Bengal today. A clash among two groups of CPI-M cadres in Hatgachia area of South 24 Parganas left four persons injured. In another incident, some CPI-M cadres went on a rampage, destroying property of Congress supporters and wounding at least eight men last night.
The Congressmen had left the CPI-M before the Assembly polls citing highhandedness of CPI-M leaders. After they came to know about the attack, Congress supporters from neighbouring villages rushed to their rescue resulting in a clash that dispersed only when a team from Habra police station intervened. To avert further violence, a police picket has been posted at Baogachi. However, no arrests could be made in connection with the incident.
Protesting against the CPI-M’s attack and the failure of law enforcement to bring attackers to book, the Congress today observed a 12-hour bandh in Habra. Most markets remained closed, buses and auto rickshaws stayed off the road. Irate Congress supporters today blocked railway tracks at Habra and Guma railway station disrupting train services for nearly two hours in Seahdah-Bongaon section. Police detained a few Congress supporters for forcibly closing shops in Habra. Accusing police of acting under the instruction of the CPI-M, Congress leader Mr Abdul Hamid Mondal said: “Instead of arresting the CPI-M cadres, police have detained three Congress supporters who were assaulted by CPI-M goons.” Local CPI-M leaders have denied charges and said that a brigade of Congress cadres attacked the Baogachi village last night. “When villagers and CPI-M cadres put up stiff resistance, congress backed criminals started assaulting villagers forcing our men to retaliate,” said a local CPI-M leader.
“The CPI-M launched its first attack on breakaway CPI-M cadres just after the polls were over on Friday night. Similar attacks were launched on Saturday night as well. We had submitted a memorandum to the police yesterday demanding a crackdown on the attackers,” said Mr Mondal.
“They attackers fled when police reached around 9 p.m.,” said Mr Narayan Saha, a Congress leader.

Two CPM groups clash (The Statesman, May 1 2006)

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• CPM
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• INTER-PARTY-CLASHES
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13 killed by Maoists in Chhattisgarh

RAIPUR: The bodies of at least 13 more tribal hostages killed by Maoist rebels were recovered in Chhattisgarh's violence-hit Dantewada district on Saturday, raising the death toll to 15.

Police recovered the bodies from a forested area under the jurisdiction of the Arabore police station early morning and confirmed that the deceased belonged to a group of 40 tribes’ people taken hostage by the outlawed Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) on Tuesday evening.

Police had recovered the bullet-ridden bodies of two tribal hostages on Friday.

All the 13 bodies were recovered around 10 am on Saturday from deep forests near the Dornapal relief camp in Dantewada, 550 km south of here.

"The bodies had multiple wounds. The rebels had killed them by slitting their throats," district police chief Praveer Das said over telephone.

A total of 40 tribal belonging to the government-sponsored anti-Maoist group salwa judum (peace mission) were taken hostage on Tuesday evening by rebels while the tribal were returning to the government's makeshift relief camp in Dornapal from their forested village of Manikonta.

Police said the rebels had probably taken the remaining 25 tribespersons to their hideout somewhere in the Bastar forest for "interrogation about their role in the anti-insurgency operation".

The CPI-Maoist has so far not claimed responsibility for the abductions or killings.

Maoist rebels dominate half of Chhattisgarh's 16 districts. The guerrillas have killed 135 people, mostly civilians, in the state this year.

13 killed by Maoists in Chhattisgarh (Times Of India,Saturday, April 29, 2006)

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• MAOISTS
• COMMUNIST-CRIMES

Housewife ‘assaulted’ by comrades

Housewife ‘assaulted’ by comrades

Statesman News Service
KRISHNAGAR, April 30: A 23-year-old housewife was critically beaten up and then stripped off by a group of four CPI-M youths, when she denied making physical relations with them.
The victim has lodged complaint with the Thanarpara police against the four accused such as Habibur Mondol, Abbas Mondol, Siraj Mondol and Mannan Mondol, all are known as CPI-M workers in the locality, while the police have failed to arrest none of the accused so far.
Though, a case has been initiated by the police against the accused and the victim has been sent to the hospital for her required medical examination. According to the complaint lodged with the police, the woman who is a mother of three children was recently given an ill proposal by the four youths who are all neghbours. But, the woman refused their proposal and declined making any physical relations with them. On the last Thursday, in absence of her husband in the house, she was forcibly taken out by the accused in the night and brought to a nearby field where the accused brutally beat her up. She was stripped and molested. Soon after it, she lost her sense. After two hours, she regained her sense and in the melee of the state, of what consequences, she had faced, she could not recognize.
She then returned her house and became shaky following the incident. As her husband went to Burdwan for daily-jobs and returned home yesterday, she narrated the incident to him.
Heard about the incident, the victim’s husband accompanied her to the police station and lodged complaint with the police.

Housewife ‘assaulted’ by comrades

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• COMMUNIST-CRIMES
• CPM