‘Slain Maoist leader was working on ceasefire’

Communist Party of India [ Images ] Maoist leader Cherukuri Rajkumar alias Azad was working on a proposal for a ceasefire between the Left-wing extremists and security forces when he was nabbed by the AP police and killed in a fake encounter, a CPI-Maoist leader has claimed.

Gudsa Usendi, spokesman of the Dandakarniya special zone committee of the CPI-Maoist, told rediff.com that Azad was articulating the point of view of the organisation to Home Minister P Chidambaram’s [ Images ] proposal for a 72-hour ceasefire and peace talks.

“In fact, he was coming to Dandakarniya region to talk to us to work out a ceasefire when he was caught by the police near Nagpur,” he said.

“Now the dastardly killing of Azad shows that Chidambaram’s talk was a mere drama,” he said.

“Azad wanted a meaningful exercise. He wanted Operation Green Hunt to be stopped and wanted to ensure ceasefire from both the sides,” Usendi said.

Usendi claimed that a freelance journalist from Delhi [ Images ], Hemchandr Pandey, was accompanying Azad when he was nabbed by the police. Pandey was reportedly a resident of Dewaltal village in Pithorgarh in Uttarkhand who was working as a free lance journalist in Delhi.

Both of them were taken to Adilabad forest and killed in the forest area in a staged encounter, Usendi claimed.

Maoist sympathiser Vara Vara Rao claimed that Pandey was doing a story on ‘the atrocities on tribal population in the name of Operation Green Hunt against Maoists’.

On Friday, the police had claimed that Azad and another unidentified Maoist were killed in an encounter in Jogapur forest area of Adilabad district. According to the police, the Maoists and the police personnel exchanged gunfire for over four hours. But locals residing in nearby hamlets claimed that they had not heard any sound of firing.

Adilabad District Superintendent of Police Pramod Kumar said between 20 and 25 Maoists participated in the encounter.

The identification of the other victim as a journalist has only added to the confusion and raised several uncomfortable questions for the police.

Vara Vara Rao has demanded a judicial inquiry into the entire episode.

PTI adds:

The Andhra Pradesh police said that the identity of the person killed along with Azad was yet to be established.

“We are yet to establish the identity of the deceased,” said Andhra Pradesh Director General of Police R R Girish Kumard.

Mohammed Siddique in Hyderabad

‘Does Mr Chidambaram believe in democracy?’

rediff

The last six weeks have seen a series of deadly attacks on security forces and civilians by the Maoists or Naxalites, the insurgent group present in eight states, which Prime Minister Manmohan Singh describes as the gravest threat to India.

While the Maoists claim they are fighting a war on behalf of landless tribals, their opponents call them armed terrorists exploiting tribal sentiments.

In their worst-ever attack on April 6, Maoists massacred 76 Central Reserve Police Force personnel in Dantewada, Chhattisgarh. In another murderous attack on May 17, they killed 40 civilians and special police officers in Bijapur, Chhattisgarh.

The recent attacks have left Union Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram grappling with the most serious internal security crisis on his watch.

As the government revisits its anti-Maoist strategy with Congress party President Sonia Gandhi advocating a redressal of the root causes of the problem, the debate on how to tackle the issue has gained in significance in the public space.

Sociologist Nandini Sundar is a prominent thinker on the Maoist debate. Along with two other intellectuals she filed a public interest litigation in the Supreme Court in 2007 against the excesses of the Salwa Judum, the anti-Maoist organisation of tribals in Chhattisgarh.

In this interview with Girija Shivakumar, Sundar, a professor at Delhi University, argues how the home minister has no grasp of the situation and highlights the importance of peace talks in finding a solution.

Often analysis indicates that development should take priority over anti- insurgency actions. How can development based activity be pursued in an atmosphere where schools buildings are being attacked/roads destroyed?

I don’t think there is a consensus that development should take precedence over Naxalism. I think that their sustained struggle actually shows that this problem has been neglected.

If you listen to Times Now (the television channel), (its editor-in-chief) Arnab Goswami is calling for India versus the others, as if these Adivasis living in Chhattisgarh are not part of India.

The rehabilitation plan which the Supreme Court had asked us to prepare was to understand the people living in this war-ridden atmosphere. We have asked college boys and districts judges to come out from the villages and give us information.

We have looked at the war situation and tried to see what needs to be done immediately for rehabilitation. Ultimately for anything to work there will have to be peace talks — that clearly is the bottom line.

‘Why should innocents die because of govt’s failed policy?’

rediff.com

Tuesday’s deadly ambush by Naxals on paramilitary forces in Dantewada, which claimed the lives of 75 CRPF jawaans and policemen raises many unanswered questions. Local journalists and politicians speak on the reasons behind the massacre.

Jab tak hamara khun pani hai aapka khun khun ha, tab tak hamare vahan log marte rahenge (Till the time value of our life is less, our people will keep dying).

Rajendra Bajpai, a journalist residing in Jagdalpur in tribal dominated Dantewada district of Chattisgarh told rediff.com while reacting to the shocking deaths of 75 jawans and policemen in his district at the hands of naxalites on Tuesday.

He said, “Even when one man dies in New Delhi it hits the headlines — but when tribals are killed we don’t get enough attention because the value of tribal lives are less than the urban Indian lives.”

While giving details of the deaths of Central Reserve Police Force jawans and policemen, he said, “Yesterday around 156 CRPF jawans had gone on search operations on foot. Some villagers from that area must have informed the Naxals about it. Since the CRPF jawans had gone inside the jungles, the Naxals knew surely they would return to their base camp in Chintalnar by the same road.”

“In the area called Talmetla, Naxals lay land mines. Early morning on Tuesday, when security forces were returning, they were obviously quite exhausted. The summer is on and it is very hot. Two jawans died as the first blast took place at Talmetla. Then in cross-firing in a bid to defend themselves, more people died. Even rescue teams could not be of much help, because even they were attacked,” he added.

The Naxals were well-prepared for the ambush. They had not only put land mines on their return path, but they also blocked all the roads leading to the area and encircled it, so that no rescue team could reach them.

According to initial information, when the blast took place, two of security forces died. So the CRPF jawans tried to fight back, but they had to fight at several places.

“It was like the expanded battlefield,” said Karimuddin, another journalist working out of Jagdalpur.

However, these inputs could not be rechecked as senior officers of the district are still engaged in evacuation of dead bodies from the area and in cordoning off the villages.

Manish Kunjam, a Communist Party of India living in Dantewada, said, “This kind of attack must be condemned, but people making policies should now sit and think what is not working out. Till the time you don’t respect and give tribals of India their rights over water, land and forests, such Naxalites will keep getting support in villages and our security forces will remain in the firing line.”

He went on to add, “These deaths make us grim. But, it also tells us that the government must radically change its policies to win the hearts of the tribals.”

“Those who are against violence should understand that such a big ambush was not possible for the Naxal leaders without local support. Someone has informed them that a CRPF party has gone into the jungles for search operations. Also, when they lay the ambush to gherao them, it could not have escaped the attention of the local people,” he noted.

The biggest weakness of the current establishment is that although the co-ordination between forces has slightly improved, but it’s still not at the desired level. The state machinery and central forces have not synchronised their agenda and priorities.

Prakash Singh, former chief of the Border Security Force and the CRPF, while talking to rediff.com, said, “On the ground the CRPF and state police have reservations. State police has doubts about operational efficacy of the CRPF.”

Whoever rediff.com spoke to in Dantewada, seems angry — because they say that urban India and particularly powerful people in New Delhi ‘don’t understand basic issues of tribals of India. Why should security forces die because of ill-conceived policies of governments?’

Bajpai said angrily, “The most important thing urban India should note is that economy of the tribal belts of India is functioning. Why? How? With whose help? Thekedar (contractors), businessmen, industrialists, miners and bureaucrats all are non-tribals and have a tight grip over the economy of the area.”

While condemning the deaths of jawans, he said, “Why should they die?”

“Whether you get operation red or green or yellow hunt, nothing will change here, because everybody is in business of making money in the name of ‘eradicating Maoists. Just stop it from New Delhi, if you can,” he added.

Ban will not affect us: Maoists

source-rediff
The Centre on Monday banned the Communist Party of India-Maoist as a terror organisation to avoid any ambiguity after the merger of the Communist Party of India-(Marxist Leninist) Liberation and Maoist Communist Centre in 2004.
However, West Bengal’s Left Front government feels the Centre’s move would make the outfit more aggressive.
A large section of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) feels banning the Maoists will hardly make any difference on the ground and it is better to counter them politically.
On Monday, Gour Chakraborty, the CPI (Maoist) spokesman, told rediff.com over the telephone that the Centre’s stand would have no effect whatsoever on his party.
This is what he had to say:
The Centre’s stand is not a new move. It had made a similar announcement in 2004. This time it just repeated itself in the context of the Lalgarh crisis.
We, the Maoists, believe in class struggle. We make no mistake in identifying our class enemies. The government that we have at the Centre now is a capitalist government run on the maxim: The poor should get poorer and rich the richer.
It is quite, natural, therefore, that the government won’t like the existence of a people-friendly outfit like ours in an area like Jangalmahal, rich in foreset reserve, minerals and other natural resources.
Ever since we started our operations, we posed obstructions to the government’s ambition of minting money by exploiting the resources of this area. Also, it saw in us a barricade that prevented them from taking undue advantage of the residents of Jangalmahal.
The government knows that unlike the Jangalmahal people, we are armed and that we know how to deal with violence, hence a ban seems to be the best option to put a check on our activities.
However, let me tell you, the central government is thoroughly mistaken. Since inception, the CPI (Maoist) has been an underground party. It has always carried out its operations clandestinely.
Therefore, a prohibition is not going to have any influence on our party’s activities. In fact, it will only infuse into us a new sense of grit to counter the government opposition.
Interestingly, the central ban on us has put the Left Front government of West Bengal in a spot. One of the main constituents of the front happens to be the CPI-M .It is common knowledge that one Communist party can never ban another Communist party.
Therefore, the CPI-M as also a few other members of the Front, are against the ban as they have been in the past.
However, the ruling government of West Bengal, I am sure, will continue to arrest our men on the pretext of ‘fighting violence’, bring fictitious charges against them and will carry on their anti-Maoist activities across the state.
Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee too would not oppose the Left Front’s anti-Maoist moves as she wants most of us to be either arrested or killed prior to the 2011 assembly election.
As the spokesperson of the CPI (Maoist), all I want to say is that these ever-changing political equations amuse us greatly; crafty politicians and their shifting loyalties entertain us.
As we stand united to put up a brave fight against our class enemies, we express our deepest hatred for the ‘rotten’ political system of our country.
As told to Indrani Roy Mitra