NSS call for SENDRA against maoists
08 March, 2007
Jamshedpur, March 6: Shankar Hembrom, the self-styled president of Nagrik Suraksha Samiti (NSS), would like the state government to increase his security. After a dozen Naxalites were lynched by the NSS in August, 2003, at Lango village, Hembrom has been strutting around with four police bodyguards. But the number was recently reduced to two and Hembrom clearly does not believe it to be adequate. Read more
Labels: Jharkhand, News, Sendra
posted by Bimal 8.3.07,
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Chief vows training, not raid
14 February, 2007
Ranchi, Feb. 13: General Officer Commanding-in-Chief of Central Command Lieutenant-general O.P. Nandrajog today confirmed that though the army would give technical training to the state’s armed police in combat operations, it will not participate in the anti-Naxalite raids.He said the rebel outfits operating in Jharkhand and other parts of the country had close links with Inter Services Intelligence (ISI).
“The ISI activities along the Indo-Nepal border in Bihar and Indo-Bangladesh border in Jharkhand and Bangladesh pose a serious threat to our national security,” he said.The governments of the concerned states should work out effective ways to combat the menace, he proposed.In a 45-minute meeting with chief minister Madhu Koda, Nandrajog focussed on wide-ranging issues, including the local operational problems of the army and the welfare of service personnel.
Rehabilitation of retired service personnel, transfer of army lands for the expansion of Birsa Munda Airport, the dispute over field-firing ranges, training to the state police and setting up of a new military cantonment in the state, too, were discussed at length.
The government offered to mediate army’s land negotiations with the villagers. “We have been giving regular training to the police since 2006. Eliminating the disruptive forces is the duty of the state machinery. We are here to support them. But, the army will not directly join the operations. The army is doing its job well at the borders,” he added.
So long, the army has been giving training to 500 JAP personnel every year. During his meeting with the GoC-in-C, the chief minister proposed that the annual strength of JAP trainees should be raised to 1,000. He also proposed to start a new public school in Hazaribagh.
“My meeting with the army commander was cordial. He gave me positive assurances. I, too, agreed to form an auxiliary police force with the retired service personnel. This has already been done in Bihar and Orissa. The villagers need to understand that they will face an employment problem if the army takes away its training centres from the state. We will work out amicable solutions through mutual talks. Nandrajog also agreed to transfer army lands for the expansion of the Birsa Munda Airport,” said Koda.
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Labels: CPI(Maoist), Jharkhand, News
posted by Resistance 14.2.07,
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Rebel roadblock for tourism
09 February, 2007
Ranchi, Feb. 8: The Naxalites have virtually derailed the tourism sector in the state.
The construction company, whose five persons were abducted for levy a few days ago, have walked out of the project to lay down the approach road to Dasham falls.
The tourism department officials revealed that the government was planning to invest about Rs 2 crore of Central funds earmarked for the overall development of the falls.
“But the rebels did not allow us to take up the project to develop Dasham, which has proved to be a death trap for many tourists. Besides, the rebels have also put a roadblock to an 18-km stretch to Netarhat, described to be the queen of the Chhotanagpur plateau,” an official said.
At a meeting held a while ago, police assured to provide protection, but unfortunately the help never came.
Similarly, the rebels have also grounded projects worth Rs 3 crore for developing roads and guesthouses at the Parasnath hills. The project at Kanke dam is also grounded due to the pressure from the local residents, they pointed out. The renovation of the Palamau fort, one of the few monuments in Jharkhand, too, is lying abandoned.
The state government had allocated about Rs 2 crore three years ago to the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) but the latter has not made any headway.
ASI superintendent J. Vaidya, however, denied that he faced any trouble from the Naxalites. “We are preparing the project that has to be cleared by an apex committee of the Supreme Court since it is situated within the Betla National Park,” he said.
Not getting help from the police, the tourism and forest department officials are said to have struck a deal with the extremists for the safety of the visitors.
Tourism secretary S.K. Chaudhary said whenever he raised the issue, the police assured him to make forces available. “We had meetings with the police but the follow-up action was never taken,” he said.
State director-general of police J. Mahapatra said the problem was genuine.
An idea was mooted to raise a special force for tourism following the pattern in Kerala and Goa. But except Parasnath in Giridih, not much revenue could be generated to fund the special force.
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Labels: CPI(Maoist), Jharkhand, News
posted by Bimal 9.2.07,
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Jharkhand New rebel commander baffles cops
06 February, 2007
Ranchi, Feb. 5: The four young men, freed by Maoists after 35 hours, today claimed that they were let off as the rebels found themselves surrounded by the police. No ransom had changed hands, they added.
The young men, all residents of Harmu, had undertaken to repair a stretch near Dasham falls at an estimated cost of Rs 84 lakh. They were abducted following their failure to cough up the Rs seven lakh demanded as “levy”.
Police sources said in their statement, the young men had admitted to the presence of two young men of Nepali origin and three tribal girls, among the rebels. Although the petty contractors had little idea about firearms, they apparently told the police that rebels were armed with sophisticated firearms that they had not seen with policemen before.
Five of them had been abducted but one of the contractors, Pappu, was set free earlier to inform the families about the ransom.
The rebels walked all the time and rested briefly before resuming their walk. They swiftly climbed a hill and took the hostages to task for being slow. One of the hostages, son of Congress leader P.N. Singh, twisted his ankle while trying to walk briskly. Raju Munda recalled that whenever the rebels rested, at least eight of them took up positions to look for the police. The eight would communicate with each other by whistling, they confided.
The group largely spoke in Mundari among themselves but the commander was called as Toppoda. While the “Toppo” is a surname more common among the Oraons, the suffix da, denoting an elder brother, is used in connection with Bengali-speaking people and Maoist commanders.
The police appear to have been taken aback by the new name. Police sources confide that they had never heard of an area commander by the name of “Toppo” before.
The victims were served with rice and sabji that rebels were carrying. When one of the hostages, Amarendra Singh, expressed inability to have rice, he was offered nimki, sonpapri and a packet of glucose.
On five different occasions the next day, the rebels found themselves at shouting distance with the police, who were combing the forests and the hills. The hostages had a scare when on one such occasion the rebels threatened to shoot them, if the police opened fire.
But they clearly wanted to avoid an encounter and on each occasion, they managed to give police the slip.
Late on Sunday night, they were released, claimed the freed hostages, from the spot from where they were abducted. Their cell phones were also returned. They reached home by 5 am today, they claimed.
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Labels: CPI(Maoist), Jharkhand, News
posted by Bimal 6.2.07,
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Jharknhand Naxalite threat to railway
Jamshedpur, Feb. 5: Intensified Naxalite activities in Ghatshila subdivision of East Singhbhum district may disrupt the train communication between Kharagpur and Tatanagar.
The stretch of 85-km railway line between Jhargram and Asanboni on the Tatanagar-Kharagpur section under Chakradharpur railway division has become vulnerable to rebel attacks, said intelligence sources.
According to the sources, the CPI (Maoist) activists are likely to step up their activities in and around Ghatshila subivisional area and their prime target could be railways.
Over the past few months, Maoists have consolidated their position in Ghatshila, Dhalbhumgarh and MGM police station areas bordering Bengal.
“As the Ghatshila, Dhalbhumgarh and MGM areas of East Singhbhum district share border with the rebel-dominated Bandwan and Belhpahari areas in Bengal, the Naxalites have got a golden opportunity to operate in Jharkhand by using the hilly terrain,” the intelligence sources told The Telegraph.
According to a source, the rebel attack on a Kharagpur-bound train near Chakulia railway station on December 10 morning was just the tip of the iceberg. He added that the rebels held numerous meetings at Ghatshila, Belpahari and Bandwan to make inroads in the rural areas after the attack on the train near Chakulia.
Deputy inspector-general of police, (Kolhan), C.P. Kiran, told The Telegraph the number the rebels in the Ghatshila subdivision was on the rise, but the administration was taking necessary steps to tame the Naxalites.
“We know that rebels’ activities at Ghatshila subivisional area are on the rise, but we are taking the necessary steps. The results can be seen shortly,” said the deputy inspector-general.
Meanwhile, the police are trying to bring hardcore Naxalite leader Sobhan Mardi into mainstream after compelling his sister and dreaded rebel Kapra Mardi to surrender before the police.
The Ghatshila subdivisional police officer, S.K. Burnwal, said the surrendered rebel narrated before the police how she was being sexually exploited by Naxalites along with other young women. He hoped her account would help unfold the real face of the Maoists.
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Labels: CPI(Maoist), Jharkhand, News
posted by Bimal 6.2.07,
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A Singur in The Making
26 January, 2007
Public Sector Displacement
NTPC’s coalmining venture faces stiff opposition from farmers who won’t leave their land and from experts who fear damage to prehistoric megaliths
Sixty-five-year-old Chandru Sao, 65, a farmer at Barkagaon in Hazaribagh district in northern Jharkhand, says his family has never had to go hungry, thanks to the seven acres of fertile farmland that he owns.
But these are desperate times — the public sector giant National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) has started the process of acquiring land for its maiden, ambitious coalmine project at Punkhri-Barwadih, a small town 30 kilometres southwest of Hazaribagh town. Sao says he would rather die than be parted from his land. Thousands of farmers, small and big, in Barkagaon block of Hazaribagh face the same predicament.
With tempers rising, the sleepy hamlets around Punkhri-Barwadih have all the makings of turning into another Singur – a flashpoint of people’s violent resistance to the prospect of losing their fertile farmland to an industrial venture.
Apart from the loss of over 10,000 acres of well-irrigated three-crop farmland, and dense forests, NTPC’s planned opencast coalmine is likely to obliterate, or at the very least damage irreparably, Punkhri-Barwadih’s megaliths — some of the last vestiges of a prehistoric civilisation which flourished in the region.
The Rs 4,000-crore Punkhri-Barwadih project is NTPC’s first ever foray into coalmining. Scheduled to commence operations in December 2007, it will displace some 14,000 families.
In November 2006, a mob of thousands of farmers tore down NTPC’s project-site office at Barkagaon. Six were arrested and there seems to be a lull for now.
But, as a Tehelka investigation discovered, that is because villagers in the remote hamlets in this Naxal-infested region are busy re-organising themselves for a stronger assault before the process of land acquisition begins. Read More>>>
Labels: Displacement, Jharkhand
posted by Bimal 26.1.07,
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Maoists’ daredevilry worries Jharkhand
03 January, 2007
Maoists’ daredevilry worries Jharkhand
On December 10, 2006 Maoist extremists intercept a passenger train near Chakulia station, near Tatanagar in Jharkhand, in broad daylight. Hold the train for about 30 minutes with a few “helpless” Railway Protection Force personnel looking on and taking repeated blows of the extremists, their service rifles snatched in no time.
nDecember 2, 2006 A group of armed Maoist extremists blows up a mini-truck carrying Jharkhand Armed Police personnel near a village in the dense Kanjkiro forests of Bokaro district, early in the afternoon. In an instant, thirteen personnel succumb to their injuries, one more die later in the hospital.
nMarch 13, 2006 ~ Armed Maoists surround and storm a passenger train at night between Hehegada and Kumandi stations along the Coal India Chord link near Latehar district of Jharkhand and snatch communication gears from the driver and guard of the train. The train is detained all through the night and set free only early the next day. The police remain mere spectators.
The three separate incidents have not only sent shivers down the spines of the Jharkhand state police and administration, but also the Railways’ police force, Railway Protection Force (RPF) and the Central Paramilitary Force contingents posted in the state to counter Maoist extremism.
And shivers are not the only impact on lawkeepers, the complete change of modus operandi of extremists have taken one and all by surprise.
The shift of the Maoists from daring night attacks and guerrilla tactics, to that of bold and open operations in broad daylight has made all set-piece calculations of the police and state administration higher-ups to combat extremism go haywire.
Senior police officers who have been leading anti-Maoist operations for sometime have confided that the Chakulia incident is a major shift from the regular ways of the extremists.
“The incident is a shift from the guerrilla ways of the Maoists. But another important drawback is the Intelligence failure in tracing the activities of extremists along the borders of Jharkhand and West Bengal.
Information has come in that the extremists have been monitoring train movements along the Tatanagar-Kharagpur route and also the movements of the RPF jawans for some time.
They had dug a few trenches in the dense Kanimohuli jungles along the tracks between Tatanagar and Chakulia and were virtually prepared for a fullscale assault on the forces trying to combat them soon after the attack on the passenger train, had it been needed.
“To dig trenches and follow train routes and their movements, one needs time and a well-scripted plan, and none of the Intelligence agencies had reported any such development. It is a major area of concern and failure,” said a senior Jharkhand police officer.
According to official records sent to the Union home ministry, the Jharkhand government has acknowledged that 18 of 22 districts of the state is under direct threat of Maoist extremists. But successive state governments, starting from the rule of Mr Babulal Marandi to the present chief minister Mr Madhu Koda, have not come up with a clearly spelt-out rehabilitation policy for the surrendered extremists. Nor is there a move to announce one in the near future.
Sporadic steps have been taken to allure hardcore extremists to return to the mainstream, but none of these was followed up with legal aid or proper rehabilitation moves.
Even willing NGOs trying to negotiate with the state government have not been given the boost to carry the process forward.
Amid growing confusion over a missing rehabilitation policy and the fast- changing tactics of Maoist extremists, turning more daring by the day, the only thing that Jharkhand’s government has done is to appeal for more deployment of paramilitary force in the state to tackle the extremists.
While Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has expressed his willingness to open dialogues with Maoist extremists operating in Jharkhand, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, the appeal of the Jharkhand government for more firepower and force from the Centre seems to be a total seems to be of no avail. The outcome of the coordination meeting between the Prime Minister, Union home minister and the chief ministers of the four Maoist-infested states has yielded little.
Having to deal with the bold change in tactics of the Maoists, the Jharkhand police and administration are bringing in the New Year with their “fingers crossed”.
(The author is The Statesman’s Ranchi-based correspondent.)
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Labels: CPI(Maoist), Jharkhand, News
posted by Bimal 3.1.07,
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