Before the March 31 Riga attack, moreover, the Maoists were involved in several incidents, including at least three major attacks, in thestate. On January 22, one police personnel was killed and at least two people were injured when CPI-Maoist cadres attacked thepolice picket at Erahi in the Buxar district. The Maoists reportedly decamped with 10 rifles. On February 27, CPI-Maoist cadres attacked a BMP camp at Khaira village in the Lakhisaraidistrict and killed four Police personnel, besides wounding another three. The extremists decamped with one carbine, three self-loading rifles and ammunition. On the same day, Maoists blasted the railway track near the eastern cabin of Dhanauristation on Kiul-Jamalpur section of the Eastern Railway in the Lakhisarai district. They also uprooted the track at Urain station in a stretch of about 10metres.
There is further evidence of Maoist dominance over the 'recovered' Bihar: the Riverine areas of Purnia, Katihar, Sitamarhi and Saharsa remain safe havens for the CPI-Maoist. Maoist recruitment and training centres are known to operate in the southern Bihardistricts of Jamui, Gaya and Kaimur. Three schools at Amba in the Aurangabad districthave closed down since February 2007 after the Maoists threatened to blow them up unless school authorities paid a'levy'. Since then, classes are being conducted in open fields by irregular teachers, as the permanent teachers have fled out of fear. In the Gayadistrict, Maoists have set up 'People's Courts' to try those charged with robbery and rape. The accused are hung up-side-down from trees and beaten till they'confess' to their crimes.
Following the Riga attack, the state government contended that the attack was a consequence of the March 2007 diversion of 10 CRPF companies from the northern Bihardistricts to the election-bound state of Uttar Pradesh by the Union government. Since 2006, Bihar has had 23 companies of the CRPF at its disposal, out of a total of 30 in thestate, for dedicated counter-Maoist operations. However, the need to provide Uttar Pradesh with 700 companies of Central Paramilitary Forces (CPMFs) led to the unilateral move, a decision which was reportedly resisted by thestate Chief Secretary and Home Secretary.
While Bihar initially appears to have been a victim of New Delhi's myopic policies, the reality is somewhat more complex. First, while the MHA had asked the Bihargovernment to temporarily relieve 10 of the 30 companies of CPMFs deployed in thestate, the decision of the locations from where this force was to be withdrawn was left to the discretion of thestate government's and its assessment of available intelligence. Secondly and crucially, the persistent dependence on the Centre is increasingly unsustainable. The MHA, for instance, contends that thestate government has raised only two of the three sanctioned India Reserve Battalions (IRBs), thus continuing its dependence on Central Forces.Bihar's state Police Force, moreover, is one of the worst in the country, with the lowest police to population ratio (at 56 per 100,000 population, against a national average of 122 per 100,000), and the neglect of thestate's security administration has been both protracted and abysmal.