Spreading their tentacles once again as soon as the security forces left the Naxal affected districts after conducting peaceful polling in the ten out of 14 lok Sabha constituencies in the state, rebel groups seem to be struggling hard to resume their activities in their strongholds to register their presence.
A fierce encounter took place near Phulwaria village in Palamau district bordering Palamu and Aurangabad on Sunday between two rival ultra outfits – CPI (Maoist) and Tritiya Prastuti Committee (TPC). The encounter lasted for about forty-five minutes. No casualty has so far been reported from any of the sides, said Palamu SP.
Since the security forces are presently busy with the last round of polls in Santhal Pargana, the state police may launch an intensive drive against the rebels once the elections are over in the state.
“Our prime concern is to conduct elections peacefully in Santhal Pargana, once the elections are conducted successfully, we will chase them in a big way,” said Jharkhand Police spokesperson and IG (Provisions) Anurag Gupta. Moreover, we have adequate forces of district police to tackle such petty incidents, he added.
Suspected People’s liberation Front of India (PlFI) rebels allegedly shot dead three minor boys at a village in Bero block in Ranchi on Saturday while a Panchayat building was blown up in Koderma. One villager was also shot dead by Jharkhand Prastuti Committee (JPC) rebels at Keredari in Hazaribagh.
According to Gupta, since the police could not keep an eye on each and every nook and corner, such small strikes in the remote areas are difficult to be stopped without active participation of the people of that area. The rebels do not require any great efforts for such incidents, he said.
“People have started defying such incidents even in the remote naxal affected areas. High percentage of voting itself signifies that naxal threat is now given no importance by the people in the state,” added Gupta.
Ranchi DIG Praveen Singh is also of the view that such petty splinter groups like PlFI and JPC do not require CRPF personnel to tackle them, district police itself was capable enough to counter them.
“We do not require CRPF for such criminal groups. Moreover, Santhal Pargana being the less affected are, all the forces have not been moved there for conducting polls,” said Singh.
Splinter outfits are criminal groups which are engaged in criminal and abduction activities by terrorizing the poor villagers in the name of Maoist threat, which could be dealt easily with the district police, added Singh. “We are still in a position to tackle them in an efficient way,” he added.
Remarkably, the state police, on the instructions of the Election Commission had launched intensive anti-Naxal operations in the left Wing Extremism (lWE) affected areas of the state after the intelligence inputs form the Ministry of Home Affairs that the rebels might try to disrupt the polls by attacking on the prominent leaders and candidates during the lok Sabha Elections 2014.