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Naxals may carry out targeted killings in cities: Reports

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

New Delhi, May 29, IRNA -- Major urban centers, including national capital, may witness targeted killings by Maoists in coming months as the ultras are looking for opportunities to carry out violence, intelligence reports have warned.

After the massacre of 27 people, including Congress leaders, in Chhattisgarh, Naxals are trying their best to expand the CPI (Maoist) activities beyond its area of influence and targeted killings are one of the key options.

The reports, prepared by intelligence agencies, suggest that Maoists have suffered significant reverses in recent past and Saturday's attack in Jagdalpur was the result of the extremists' attempt to hog national limelight and reassert their influence.

To get maximum mileage in respect of getting international attention as well as to boost the morale of the cadres, the Maoists would now try to carry out spectacular violence over soft targets in urban centres, the reports said.

The desperation of Maoists was reflected in the intercepted conversations of the few top leaders mostly hiding in deep jungles of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Odisha, the PTI reported, quoting officials sources as said. Security agencies believe the operations against the Maoists will be a prolonged task and required nearly 27,000 more paramilitary personnel and at least two to three years to clear the Naxal dominated areas in Bastar (Chhattisgarh), Malkangiri and Koraput (both in Odisha) and Latehar (Jharkhand).

Currently, 82,000 paramilitary personnel are deployed in anti-Naxal operations apart from the state police forces.

Meanwhile, the Union Home Minister said on Thursday that the Government has specific information that Naxals are trying to expand their bases in urban centers and may try to target cities.

'We have (had) this information for long. We have information about Pune. This can happen in other places. We have this information,' he told the reporters here.

The home minister said that the Maoists have been trying to set up bases in many urban centers.

On the possibility of holding peace talks with Naxals, Shinde said, 'When there is no offer (from the Maoists), whom will we talk to? With you?'

Asked whether there were any shortcomings in government policy in dealing with the Naxals, he said that the current strategy was satisfactory.

Meanwhile, appalled by the 'savage' attack in Chhattisgarh, National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) Friday, he said that the Maoists have now made it impossible for the authorities to take social welfare programs to the most needy and asked the government to take precautionary steps to ensure that the villagers would not suffer in any retaliatory operation.

In a statement, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) said that it condemns this 'brutality' in which around 30 people, including Congress leaders, were killed last week, and urged Maoists to 'abandon violence, which has made matters worse for the villagers whose cause they claim to espouse'.

The Commission said it was 'appalled by the savage attack' on May 25, in which so many people were killed by the left-wing extremists, some after being taken alive.

'Health and education facilities can rarely be provided; only the PDS is permitted to function, because a part of these food supplies sustain Naxals. The children of these families, poor, ill-fed, illiterate, are the pool from whom Naxals recruit their cadres. For the Naxals, therefore, violence is self-serving. There is no just cause which they try to advance through it.

'It was clear to the Commission that the Naxals have now made it impossible to reach social welfare programs to those who need them most. The plight of the poorest and the most vulnerable, on whose behalf the Naxals claim to have taken up arms, has therefore become even worse,' it said.

However, the NHRC has urged the Center and state governments to take 'every precaution possible' to ensure that the villagers of the region, already traumatized by the ongoing violence, of which they are the primary victims, do not suffer even more in any retaliatory operations against the Naxals.

Noting that it closely follows the developments in Chhattisgarh, the NHCR said that the Commission's special rapporteurs and other officers are making regular visits to the state after its report to the Supreme Court on Salwa Judum.

The Commission, led by its Chairman Justice K. G. Balakrishnan, held a camp sitting last month in Raipur and two NHRC members travelled to Dantewada to try to form a first-hand impression of developments in Bastar region, where the suffering is the most acute, it said.

It said the Commission is 'extremely concerned' that the level of violence will rise again after this last attack by the Naxals as the state tries to arrest or kill those who were responsible.

'Police officers have confirmed to the Commission that the Naxals use villagers who are sympathisers as human shields when they are cornered. Other villagers have no option but to do what they are ordered to do by the Naxalites, but are then branded as supporters by the police and suffer the consequences,' it said.

Naxalites are a group of far-left radical communists, supportive of Maoist political sentiment and ideology.

The Naxalites operate in 60 districts in India, mainly in the states of Orissa (15 affected districts), Jharkhand (14 affected districts), Bihar (seven affected districts), Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh (ten affected districts), Madhya Pradesh (8 affected districts), Maharashtra (2 affected districts) and West Bengal (1 affected district).

The first combat deaths of the insurgency were in 1980. Around 1,100 people are known to have died during 2009. The number includes 600 civilians, 300 security personnel and 200 rebels.

According to a report, more than 6,000 people have died during the rebels' 20-year fight between 1990 and 2010.

Based on the above displayed statistics, it can be determined that more than 11,700 people have been killed since the start of the insurgency in 1980, of which more than half died in the last ten years.

On April 6, 2010 Naxalites launched the most deadly assault in the history of the Naxalite movement by killing 76 security personnel. The attack was launched by up to 1,000 Naxalites in a well-planned attack, killing an estimated 76 Central Reserve Police Force policemen in two separate ambushes and wounding 50 others, in the remote jungles of Chhattisgarh’s district in Eastern/Central India. On May 17th, the Naxals blew up a bus on Dantewda–Sukhma road in Chhattisgarh, killing 15 policemen and 20 civilians. In the third Major attack by Naxals on June 29th, at least 26 personnel of the CRPF were killed in Narayanpur district of Chhattisgarh.

In March 2012 the Maoist rebels kidnapped two Italians in the eastern Indian state of Odisha, which was the first time that the westerners were abducted there. 12 CRPF personnel were killed on March 27th, 2012 in a landmine blast triggered by suspected Naxalites in Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra.

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