Activists blame govt operations

On a day when Maoists gunned down at least 76 security personnel in Dantewada,civil rights groups held the government’s “wrong” policy of pursuing an offensive against the rebels responsible for the attack.

Activist Medha Patkar said while the Maoist attack “needs to be condemned,there should be equal or more condemnation of state violence in the form of resource grab on one hand and violence unleashed by private armies of the state like Salwa Judum in Chhattisgarh on the other”.

The People’s Union For Democratic Rights said the attack was an “unfortunate fallout of the government’s willful policy of pursuing Operation Greenhunt”. “Since war remains the preferred option of the Indian government,they have no one else but themselves to blame if and when combatants die,” it said in a statement.