Orissas Red Challenge

Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik,who just two weeks ago had boasted about the success of the Orissa police in containing Left-wing extremism,had to appeal to the Naxals to release Krishna and Majhi unharmed. Though Majhi was released on February 23 and Krishna a day later,the Maoists managed to bring the state government to its knees,making it sign a joint communiqué with Maoist-backed interlocutors on suspending Operation Green Hunt against them.

The Rise of Naxalism

For a state that got sucked into a vortex of Maoist violence with the raid on the Koraput police armoury just before the general elections in 2004,the abduction of the Malkangiri collector could be a watershed event in the fight against Maoists. Though Orissa has not experienced the kind of violence that Chhattisgarh saw 3-4 years ago or that Andhra Pradesh witnessed a decade ago,Naxals have been striking at the police in Orissa with alarming regularity.

In 2000,just three of the states 30 districts were affected by Maoist violence; the number has now gone up to 19. In February 2008,Naxals raided the police armoury in Nayagarh district,looting over 1,200 arms,including 350 sophisticated weapons such as INSAS rifles and AK-47s.

But it is Krishnas abduction that has instilled fear among the bureaucrats. They may not have managed to get nine of their comrades freed,including the wife of central committee member Ramakrishna and several other top cadres,but it showed that the Maoists can hold the government to ransom as and when they want. It also showed that Malkangiri is crucial in the Naxal scheme of things, said a senior police official engaged in anti-Naxal operations.

It was in Malkangiri,a district known for its backwardness,that Naxal activities gained momentum about two decades ago. The district,which comes under the Andhra-Orissa Border Special Zonal Committee,lies at the trijunction of Orissa,Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh,offering a safe passage to Naxals to slip into any of the states. Spread over 5,700 sq km,around 57 per cent of the district is forested and its rough terrain makes it difficult to administer.

The cut-off area across Balimela dam also sees a wild growth of cannabis. Former DGP Amarananda Pattanayak,who in 2003 investigated the Maoist link to the drugs trade in Orissa,found 3,000-4,000 hectares of encroached forest land being utilised for cultivation of cannabis.

The Dandakaranya region,which the Maoists consider their liberated zone,in the Sukma area of Chhattisgarhs Dantewada district,shares its borders with Malkangiri district. Poverty,under-development and the difficult terrain helped the Maoists spread their activities. Mostly,they used Malkangiri as a safe hideout and for movement from Andhra Pradesh to Chhattisgarh and back. There are numerous routes which the rebels use for their movement at night, says a senior government official posted in the area.

Unlike in the conflict zones of Dantewada district,the presence of security forces in the remote stretches in Orissas Malkangiri is negligible and the administration has always followed the tactics of not disturbing the Maoists. Even in the mainland,Naxals have built memorials for their dead comrades at almost every village while the district administration has dug borewells close to these memorials,clearly indicating that the civil administration was not in direct conflict with the Maoists. One of the biggest Maoist memorials is at Janbai Ghat,on the banks of the Balimela reservoir,on the gateway to the cut-off area.

In June 2008,a dalam (armed squad) of the Maoists sunk a boat carrying 61 Greyhound commandos,the anti-Naxal force of Andhra Pradesh known for its tactical guerilla skills,in Balimela reservoir. Thirty-eight commandos drowned to death as Naxals on twin hillocks on either side of the reservoir fired on them from light machine guns.

Like this attack,the abduction of Krishna was also a planned operation by the Maoists to revive their strength in Andhra Pradesh,where they have almost been decimated by the Greyhounds. The lethal Andhra Pradesh Special Intelligence Bureau that feeds operational intelligence to the Greyhounds,thanks to its army of informers spread across the forests of Khammam district,gets a tip-off the moment any top Naxalite enters Andhra. As a result,most of the 40-member central committee had shifted their base to the Abujhmad forests of Bastar,Chhattisgarh,some years ago,making it their new headquarters, says an intelligence official.

But with Chhattisgarh stepping up pressure on the Naxals and now with the Army planning a training centre in Bastar,Naxals have been planning to revive their activities on the Andhra border. Sources say Mupalla Laxman Rao alias Ganapathi,the Maoist chief,no longer stays in Abujhmad forests permanently. Instead,he moves between Maharashtra and the Andhra-Orissa border.

Intelligence sources say when Krishna was abducted and kept in a forest in the cut-off area,Ganapathi was just across the Andhra-Orissa border. It is significant that Akkiraju Haragopal alias Ramakrishna had shifted his base from Narayanpatna block to Malkangiri,when Krishna and Majhi were abducted.

Since the last few months,Naxals have been on the backfoot in Chhattisgarh as the Central and state forces have managed to recapture a large tract of the liberated zone. Last year,the Andhra Pradesh police shot dead Maoist central committee spokesperson Chemkuri Rajkumar alias Azad and a journalist somewhere in Gadchiroli. In these circumstances,it is the Andhra-Orissa Border Special Zonal Committee which is quite formidable among all their committees. The cut-off area,which has always been their bastion,thus becomes important, says a senior police official of Orissa.

Like Chhattisgarh,in Orissa too,the Naxals had been suffering reverses. We had just started tasting success after a series of failures, says a senior police officer. In 2010,there were a total of 108 killingsincluding 62 civilians,25 Maoists and 21 police personnelas against 81 in 2009. The desperation of the Maoists was evident from the increased civilian killings, says the officer.

Officials in the state home department say the police arrested 170 Maoists in 2010,as against 148 in 2009. On January 14 last year,the police arrested Saswati Das alias Mili Panda,wife of CPI-Maoist State Organising Committee Secretary Sabyasachi Panda,on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar. In November 2010,40-year-old Padma alias Sirisa alias Nirmala,wife of the CPI-Maoist Central Committee Member Ramakrishna alias RK,was arrested,along with two other women,from Semiliguda block of Koraput district.

In January 2010,security forces arrested Chasi Mulia Adivasi Sangh adviser Gananath Patra from Bhubaneswar and its leader Nachika Linga later went underground.

Despite their losses,the Naxals have managed to spread their wings recently with violence being reported from Koraput,Gajapati,Kandhamal,Sundargarh,Keonjhar,Rayagada and Mayurbhanj. Against such a backdrop,the states capacity to fight still remains poor.

We are handicapped by the manpower shortages in the department, says DGP Manmohan Praharaj. While there are 142 policemen per one lakh population on an average across the country,Orissa has only 102. The state police currently has over 5,000 vacancies. Orissa will now need all its resources to counter the growing Naxal presence.

With inputs from Joseph John