Strike by night

A naxalite attack on a police outpost leaves 55 dead and the Chhattisgarh government shell-shocked.

PURNIMA S. TRIPATHI in Raipur

THE death of 55 police personnel, 24 belonging to the State police and 31 Special Police Officers (SPOs), in the naxalite attack on a police outpost in Chhattisgarh's Rani Bodli village, 500 kilometres south of Raipur, has belied the State government's claim of heightened alertness and improved preparedness to deal with naxalite violence. The attack in the wee hours of March 15 came shortly after the naxalites issued a press statement declaring their intent to intensify their struggle against the police forces and those opposed to the naxalite movement. Various naxalite organisations took this "policy decision" at their "ninth congress" held at an undisclosed location in the jungles.

After such a categorical warning, it was expected that the police forces would be on alert. But this was not the case: personnel at the outpost in Rani Bodli were unable to defend themselves, let alone mount a counter-attack.

According to eyewitness accounts, confirmed by government officials, most of the policemen were asleep when the naxalites lobbed hand grenades and petrol bombs. Another fact that has come to light is that the policemen went on a drinking binge the previous night and so could not respond effectively to the attack. Three policemen who stayed awake escaped death by hiding in a separate wing of the building, which houses a girls' hostel.

State Home Minister Ram Vichar Netam maintained that the police could not counter the attack because they were hopelessly outnumbered by the naxalites, who were some 500 in number and were equipped with sophisticated weapons. However, he said, the police exchanged fire for about two hours, hoping to get reinforcements. By the time reinforcements arrived at 6 o'clock the following morning, it was six hours too late. "The naxalites had dug up the roads and blocked them with felled trees," the Minister said. Netam, however, admitted that the police force was not fully prepared to counter the attack.

Now the blame game has begun. Mahendra Karma, Congress Legislature Party leader, who is leading the anti-naxalite campaign Salwa Judum (meaning peace mission in the Gondi language), says the government has failed to capitalise on the massive people's support to counter the naxalite threat. "There is no seriousness or sincerity in tackling the naxalite problem. After the naxalites' February meeting, the government should have been all the more alert. It is blaming the Centre for the rising naxalite menace instead of doing something on its own," he said.

According to Karma, the police have no policy to tackle naxalites; the police posts in the naxalite-affected areas are vulnerable and the SPOs are not properly trained to use sophisticated weapons. "The SPOs should be trained in handling rocket-launchers, AK-47s, light machine guns and other sophisticated weapons for emergency situations such as this," he said. Had they been trained, they would not have become easy targets, according to him. "The huge casualty at Rani Bodli could have been avoided had the government been prepared," Karma said.

However, he is firm that Salwa Judum, which is apparently the cause of increased naxalite aggression, will not be stopped because "this is one of the rarest of rare cases where unarmed people have risen in revolt against armed naxalites and resolved to liberate Bastar from their political terrorism".

Karma argues that any liberation struggle anywhere in the world has had to pay a price and Salwa Judum is no exception. The campaign has rendered 47,000 Adivasis refugees in their own homeland. The tribal people are living in Salwa Judum camps in Dantewada district, which was formerly part of Bastar district.

Karma made his point clear: no matter how many villagers die, no matter how many complaints of human rights violations are made against Salwa Judum activists, the campaign will continue because "there is no other option". Violations are unavoidable in a war of such a mammoth scale, Karma said. Some reports that appeared in 2005 and 2006 said the forcibly displaced tribal villagers were living in miserable conditions in the Salwa Judum camps.

As for the government, which has been all along claiming that Salwa Judum is a self-initiated people's movement against Maoist oppression and that it is only providing logistical support to "people suffering at the hands of naxalites", this is a convenient state of affairs. It has now a huge human shield in the form of Salwa Judum activists to fight the naxalites, and has abdicated its policing responsibilities to some extent, hoping the naxalites and villager-activists will fight it out between themselves.

No wonder then that the anti-naxalite desk in the Union Home Ministry is desperate for action from the Chhattisgarh government. According to senior officials in the Ministry, the Chhattisgarh government has 13 of the 33 battalions of paramilitary forces at its disposal, the highest among the States. Yet the government has made no use of them. The State is also in possession of an unmanned aerial vehicle to survey the naxalite-infested area, but the vehicle is lying unused in Raipur. Chhattisgarh has been provided a helicopter to transport reinforcements in an emergency situation like the one at Rani Bodli, but it too is lying unused.

The Chhattisgarh government, however, dismisses these charges, saying that 13 battalions were inadequate for tackling the naxalite menace, which is spread over a vast area. "Bastar district alone is spread over 10,000 square kilometre.

Besides, the districts of Rajnandgaon and Sarguja are also affected," Ram Vichar Netam said. As for the helicopter, he said it arrived only "two days ago" (on March 17) and that the unmanned aerial vehicle was "not of much use" in gathering information about naxalite movement, although it was being used to make sorties. Netam made it clear that there was no option but to fight the naxalites, in spite of logistical difficulties. "There can be no dialogue with people who believe in terrorism, and kill innocent people and jawans, until they give up arms and agree to talk to us within the democratic framework. Until then, we have no option but to fight them, no matter what the price. We will only talk to them on our own terms, and unlike the previous government we will not make any compromise with the naxalites," he said.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister Raman Singh announced the formation of a three-member committee of experts to study the situation in Chhattisgarh and recommend remedies. "The committee will give its report within a month and its recommendations will be implemented in both letter and spirit," he said. Raman Singh had brought in K.P.S. Gill, who earned the nickname of "Supercop" following his success in tackling terrorism in Punjab, to devise anti-naxalite strategies. Apparently, Gill has not given any concrete proposal to tackle the naxalite problem except the one to train dogs in the United States at a whopping cost of Rs.5 crore.

Another disturbing aspect of the government-naxalite conflict has come to light in the wake of the attack. The Rani Bodli outpost was based in a residential school (called Balika Ashram) for girls. Girl students, studying in Classes I-V were residing in the building, which also housed about 75 police personnel, including SPOs. SPOs are civilians participating in the Salwa Judum campaign and have been conferred the status of police officers with some rudimentary training in handling rifles.

The portion of the premises where the girls stayed was separated from the outpost by a wall. According to reports from Rani Bodli, on the night of the attack, 24 armed State police personnel and 50-odd SPOs were present in the building. Eleven policemen suffered serious injuries in the attack. Three SPOs, supposed to be informers of naxalites, are said to be missing. Why the forces were lodged in a girls' hostel is a question nobody wants to answer in Raipur.

Although a government spokesman said this was "the only example" of forces being stationed in a girls' hostel, Tribal Welfare Secretary M.K. Raut is on record as having said that 150 schools/ashrams in Dantewada district are in the possession of security forces. His pleas to the Chief Minister to get the forces shifted have failed to have any impact.

According to a senior Home Department official, the Chief Minister has given specific instructions that forces should not be lodged in school/hostel premises in normal circumstances. "Yet these are abnormal times and at times it is not possible to avoid school/hostel buildings totally, which is only for the safety of the villagers," he says.

But when police forces are lodged in schools/hostels, will those living within or near those premises not become vulnerable to naxalite attacks? Local people say the naxalites take care not to harm village residents when they target such premises.

As the State government's strategies to end naxalite violence are yet to have a positive impact, common people continue to get killed, caught in the crossfire between the police and the rebels.