THE attacks on the armoury, police station and police training schools in Orissa's Nayagarh on February 15 was evidence enough, if any was needed, that the Naxalites are in the process of consolidating their presence in the region. Over a week after the attack, the state police feel that the weapons looted from the armoury were part of an ongoing plan to upgrade the network in the state.

‘‘This is evident from the ferocity of the attack and large number of arms looted,’’ a senior officer maintains. The Naxal strike seemed to fit in with what Misir Besra, the top Naxalite leader arrested by the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) from the jungles of Jharkhand in September last year, had told his interrogators. That the Naxalites were trying to consolidate in states contiguous with a base area in the Dandakaranya forests on the Chhattisgarh-Orissa border. And they were planning to raise new ‘‘companies’’ and ‘‘platoons’’ to boost their strike capabilities in eastern India.

The 9th Congress of the Maoists in the Bheemband forest on the Bihar-Jharkhand border, part of the so-called ‘‘liberated’’ zone, in January 2007 saw over 100 delegates discuss the road ahead. They decided to form an Eastern Regional Command that has now been given 17 platoons of 20-odd armed members each. Enrolment of new members continues. According to the Institute for Conflict Management, Jharkhand alone has seen a threefold increase in the number of armed cadre over the last three years. In fact, Besra’s questioning had also provided the first warning that Naxalites were planning a major attack on an armoury in Orissa. He spoke of Bargarh as the target. The Naxals eventually struck at Nayagarh, the change in plan perhaps being necessitated by Besra’s arrest. His questioning also provided what is perhaps the most exhaustive insight into the organisational structure of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) yet—a network that involves four ‘‘regional bureaus’’ and 17 ‘‘state bureaus’’; a two-year budget of Rs 60 crores and urban units to target a plan to raise new ‘‘companies’’ to boost its striking capabilities in central and eastern India.

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