Post the dastardly Maoist ambush in Sukma that singed lives of 25 security personnel, the Centre is toying with the idea of a renewed combined assault on the current active Maoist corridor in Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Jharkhand in order to corner them to a single zone so as to neutralise the leftwing extremists (lWEs) with pinpointed accuracy. However, a clear-cut document would get the final approval at the May 8 meeting of lWE-affected States convened by the Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh.
A recent review of the lWE incidents in 2017 by the Centre in the wake of the Sukma attack revealed an emerging trend in Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, where the Maoists seemingly have achieved an upper hand over the anti-Maoist operation when statistics show that fatalities inflicted by lWEs on security force personnel or civilians/police informers in the three States are higher than the lWEs killed in anti-Maoist operations till April-end in 2017.
In contrast, the lWE casualties in 2016 were higher than the fatalities of security forces and civilians, including police informers, taken together. The Centre is also analysing the causes behind the sudden spurt in the lWE violence in 2017 across the three States.
Another trend observed is that the frequency of landmine blasts by lWEs to inflict casualties on security forces has increased in 2017 in Chhattisgarh and Odisha. When Odisha had seen only five landmine blasts by lWEs in 2016 that killed four security personnel and injured one, in 2017 till April-end the lWEs have triggered three landmine explosions that killed eight security personnel and injured another five. Similarly, Chhattisgarh has witnessed 10 landmine blasts and Jharkhand recorded two till April-end 2017. Maoists have failed to trigger any such blast in any other States like Andhra Pradesh or Telangana.
According to a top CRPF official here, continued or increased cases of landmine blasts in the States show that Maoists still have a sort of area dominance in the particular tract of Odisha-Chhattisgarh border and also Bihar-Jharkhand-Odisha border. The renewed operation on lWEs would, therefore, greatly focus on the tracking, spotting and putting an embargo on the free movement of lWEs on the identified lWE corridors in the three States in order to neutralise the area dominance of lWEs, he observed.
He further added that when with the large-scale lWE surrenders since 2014 the security establishment had gained a deep penetration in anti-Maoist operations, the lWEs had vengefully targeted such potential police informers last year, especially in Odisha and Chhattisgarh, to create a fear psychosis and neutralise the ground-level intelligence operations launched by security establishment. Ground-level intel operation is very essential to track the movement of lWEs in order to plan any successful counter operation, the officer explained.
Statistics show that when in 2016 lWEs killed 26 police informers, till the April end this year nearly a dozen such killings have taken place in Odisha. And Odisha is third in police informer casualties after Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. Security of police informers fully hinges on State police, the officer observed.