<span style='color:red'>Centre sleeps as Maoists plan bloodbath in Chhattisgarh </span>
Navin Upadhyay | New Delhi
Chhattisgarh Government fears a major Maoist offensive against Salwa Judum camps, but its desperate SOSs to the Centre has met with a stony silence. State Government officials feel that the situation was grim and they could do precious little to combat Maoists with the current level of deployment.
The Maoists have mobilised nearly 10,000 armed cadre in Bastar alone. The security forces are vastly outnumbered with each battalion required to operate in an area of 3,000 sq ms and each company in 500 sq km. A lone policeman is supposed to guard an area of four kilometres.
Even as intelligence inputs indicate that the Maoists are plotting mayhem by launching a major offensive on the Salwa Judum camps, the Centre has so far not promised to meet the State's requirement of additional Central forces.
Sources said the State needed at least 70 additional battalions of Central paramilitary forces to launch and sustain any major strike against Maoists. "This is the only way we could think of eliminating Maoists altogether," said a senior official.
Sources said the Chhattisgarh Government has repeatedly asked the Centre to urgently send additional battalions of Central forces to combat the situation. Officials feel that even if the Maoist activities had to be checked at current level, at least a dozen additional battalions of Central forces are needed at the earliest.
"There are two ways of looking at the problems. The first is to launch an all-out offensive against the Maoists and completely weed them out. The second is to check their growth and prevent them from undertaking major operations," said an official.
Painting a grim scenario, he said the Centre has ruled out providing 70 battalions for a decisive push against the Maoists. "We are now pleading for at least a dozen battalions to avert any major incident," he said, adding, "So far we have no indication of any help coming soon."
The official said in the worst affected Bastar district alone, there were nearly 9,000 armed Maoist cadre. These include members of the Dandakarnaya special zone committee, divisional committee, area committees, local organisational squads, military companies, local guerrilla squads, Andhra Pradesh border committee, link squads of Maharashtra and north Telengana special zone committee. Besides, nearly 1,500 Maoist cadre from Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra have also joined the Bastar offensive.
Despite such a large mobilisation of Maoists in Bastar, the State Government has just six battalions (around 500 security men in the areas for undertaking offensive operation. Four other battalions are deployed for guarding the Salwa Judum camps, one battalion for providing security to road construction work, two battalions each for guarding the armouries and opening the national highway and other roads.
Sources said the Centre has told the State Government that it was not possible to meet the latter's demand for paramilitary forces at this stage in view of the coming elections in North-Eastern States and Karnataka. Besides, the State has also been told to fill up the vacancies in the State police.
"These are lame excuses. In a country like India, Assembly elections are held in some or the other State every year. The Centre must reallocate forces effectively to tackle serious internal situation issues. Even if they pull out one battalion each from some States, our needs could be met," said the official.
He also pointed out that the new police recruits are not equipped and trained to tackle Maoists. " We have recruited 10,000 policemen during the last three years. But they can't overnight be trained," he said.
The current trend in Maoist violence in Chhattisgarh has shown that the terrorists have changed their strategy and shifted from guerrilla warfare to military combat tactics.
Sources said that when the Maoists cadre, who are fanned out in dense forests, spot an advancing battalion, they first engage them in skirmishes and firing, which allows their back-up units to mobilise, lay ambush and attack security forces.
Sources said unlike in the past when the security forces lost their lives while conducting offensive operations, now most of the casualties take place during movement of the forces for sending rations to the police camps or escorting sick policemen.
"We can meet the new challenges only by moving in bigger battalion formations and for that we need urgent hike in deployment," the official said.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh may have admitted that the Maoist violence has emerged as the single-most security threat to the nation, but his Government seems to be doing little to combat the situation.
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