Cadre undergoing ambush training to disrupt polls in MP, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan
Faced with squeezing geographical spread and coordinated assault by security forces, the Maoists are preparing to unleash deadly attacks to disrupt Assembly elections in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan to boost the dwindling morale of the cadre.
According to Intelligence inputs with the Union Home Ministry, the Maoists have opened several training camps to train their cadre in making IEDs and carrying out ambush. One such camp has come up in Rajnandgaon (Chhattisgarh) and another one at Gadchiroli (Maharashtra). The Battalion No 1 of the People’s liberation Guerilla Army (PlGA) has stationed about 150 trained Maoists in the forest of Chhattisgarh’s South Sukma region, which is a stronghold of the Naxals.
Intelligence inputs suggest the CPI(Maoist) has expanded the Madhya Pradesh-Maharashtra-Chhattisgarh tri-junction to target the upcoming polls in the three States. The CPI(Maoist) has identified Jharkhand as a base area for training of the cadre to target the elections.
Dandakaranya region of Chhattisgarh is already an area of concern for the security forces as the ultras had carried out 47 per cent of the total violent incidents and 84 per cent of the total deaths of security forces in this region in 2017. The Dandakaranya region could also be used to launch attacks in the State besides Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.
The outfit plans to target the Assembly elections through spectacular attacks to raise the morale of the cadre in the wake of decreasing area of influence and depleting cadre base. The outfit’s plans also signify that the Maoists’ leadership is emboldened despite major reverses in the recent past, including elimination of top commanders at the hand of security forces.
The Maoists are planning the attacks in the backdrop of the fact that for the first time since 1989 the number of violent incidents has come down below the 1000-mark with just 908 incidents being reported in 2017. The security forces achieved kill ratio of over one against the Maoists since 2015 and the trend is continuing. The kill ratio depicts the number Maoists killed for every death of security personnel.
likewise, the number of police stations affected with the Maoist violence has come down from the peak of 465 in 2008 to 291 in 2017.
The number of Maoist-affected police stations has also come down from the peak of 2,023 in 2008 to just 563 in 2017. However, the security forces recorded a marginal increase in casualties owing to sustained operations in the core areas of Maoist influence. But sources said there was a reduction in the number of civilians’ death in 2017 in comparison to 2016.