Thaindian News

By Sujeet Kumar
Raipur, April 11 (IANS) In the vast hostile jungle terrain of Chhattisgarh’s insurgency-hit Bastar region, much in the news because of the recent massacre of 76 paramilitary troopers, hundreds of policemen armed only with ‘lathis’ or crude bamboo staves take on Maoists in the red terror zone.

Armed to the teeth, Maoists on the the hand carry guns, grenades, mortars and rocket launchers.

“It’s a war you can describe as ’sticks versus mortars’. In several jungle areas where police stations are vulnerable to Maoist attacks, the cops have access to either obsolete weapons or lathis. The basic thought is not to arm policemen as Maoists can take off with their weapons,” a police source said.

A senior police officer with over 15 years of posting in Maoist areas told IANS: “The central government as well as the Chhattisgarh government have the will to crush the insurgents, but lack vision and strategy. This has left hundreds of policemen in the forested interiors at the mercy of Maoists.”

“The nation should know a bitter fact that several policemen of constable rank and mostly armed with lathis salute local Maoist leaders daily in the thickly forested and largely inaccessible areas to ensure they are alive.

“But, in Raipur and New Delhi, politicians and ministers claim that the days of Maoists are numbered,” the officer remarked.

The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), in a recently released report on the government of Chhattisgarh for the year ended March 31, 2009, said: “The police department had a total of 49,143 units of weapons, of which 11,232 units (23 percent) were obsolete such as .303 rifles, .410 muskets, .38 revolvers, .303 light machine guns (LMG) and grenade firing (GF) rifles. But they were still in use.”

The report noted that Chhattisgarh is facing a shortage of 20 percent of the required weapons.

“The police headquarters had assessed a total requirement of 47,265 units (of weapons) under various categories, against which the availability was 37,911 units only. Therefore, there was an overall shortage of 9,354 units (20 percent of the requirement) for the whole state,” the CAG said.

Nearly 40,000 security personnel, including the paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), Border Security Force (BSF) and Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), are fighting Maoists in the Bastar region that is made up of five districts — Bijapur, Dantewada, Kanker, Bastar and Narayanpur.

The guerrillas Tuesday caused the biggest bloodbath in the history of the Maoist movement, killing 76 security personnel - all but one from the CRPF. The policemen deployed in the war zone are facing increased pressure to hit back urgently.

“The biggest problem is that hundreds of state policemen in the war zone feel they have been put in the landmine- infested red terror zone as ‘punishment posting’ and they can survive only by being friends with the Maoists,” an official told IANS.

Another major concern is lack of coordination among state police personnel and paramilitary men plus their reluctance to obey guerrilla warfare guidelines.

“I keep reminding policemen they should never ride in vehicles on jungle roads and should always carry de-mining squads and sniffer dogs trained in detecting improvised explosive devices (IEDs) while going on operations,” B.K. Ponwar, director of the Counter Terrorism and Jungle Warfare College (CTJWC) in Bastar, told IANS.

“It’s also very important to move in V-shape formation while being on foot in heavily mined areas but who cares for these basic warfare manuals.”

Chhattisgarh’s Director General of Police (DGP) Vishwa Ranjan, who went to Bastar after the April 6 massacre to keep up the morale of the forces, said “we have to learn from mistakes. A great deal of vigilance is required.”

(Sujeet Kumar can be contacted at sujeet.k@ians.in)