Pushing Back The Reds

Andhra Pradesh, for long theNaxalite (Maoist) heartland, has recently witnessed a relatively low dose ofviolence, though the Maoist presence continues across the state. In a starkcontrast with the preceding year, when there were 114 incidents of Maoistviolence in the first two months of 2005, year 2006 saw just 26 incidents overthe same period, according to Ministry of Home Affairs data. The contrast is themore dramatic when compared to other affected states, such as Chhattisgarh whichrecorded 95 incidents (86 in the same period in 2005) and Jharkhand, with 56incidents (72 in 2005). It would, of course, be presumptuous to conclude thatthe state has turned the tide in Andhra; but recent developments certainlyreflect a marked change.

The ‘peace process’ inAndhra Pradesh over the period May 2004 - January 2005 had significantlyweakened the position of the state forces vis-à-vis the Maoists, who hadused the interregnum for a massive drive of political and militaryconsolidation. As such when the ‘honeymoon’ ended, the state had to come upwith an effective response to recover the ground earlier vacated. In contrast tothe halting of all combing operations during the ‘peace process’, the AndhraPradesh Police, with the help of intelligence inputs from across the state andcountry, resumed these operations, emphasizing improvements in the localintelligence network, so that they could pinpoint the movement of Maoist dalams(armed squads).

The resumption of policeoperations came even as Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy unveiled a‘two-pronged strategy’ to tackle the Maoists, on September 19, 2005. Reddydeclared that the strategy included the implementation of developmentalprogrammes in Maoist-affected districts to wean away potential recruits fromLeft Wing extremist groups and strict law and order enforcement to checkviolence. As part of the strategy to speed up development in Maoist-affectedareas, a new department of Remote and Interior Areas Development was created. 15districts were identified under the scheme on the basis of the Naxalite-relatedincidents: Srikakulam, Vizianagaram, Visakhapatnam, East Godavari, Guntur,Prakasam, Nellore, Anantapur, Kurnool, Mahabubnagar, Warangal, Nizamabad,Adilabad, Karimnagar and Khammam. About 500,000 families in 3,000 villagesacross 280 mandals (blocks) in these Districts were identified asaffected and sought to be brought under the scheme, for which a sum of fourbillion rupees was budgeted. Given the record of ‘developmental schemes’ inthese regions in the past, the eventual impact of these measures remainsuncertain. However, the ‘second prong’ – strict law and order enforcement– has already shown demonstrable results.

Outlining the police strategy,Andhra Pradesh Director General of Police Swaranjit Sen stated, "We are verycareful about whom we arrest. We made a decision to arrest only hardcore Naxalsand not those who might have helped Naxals by providing them food or shelter outof fear… We have recruited about 3,000 tribals from Naxal-affected areas inthe Andhra Pradesh Special Police Battalion. Physical and educationalrequirements were relaxed for them. Such measures would further dry up therecruiting ground for Naxals." Moreover, close to 894 extremists surrenderedin 2005, as compared to 396 in 2004 and 1,035 in 2003.

As in the late 1990s, anapolitical decision to tackle the Naxalites has allowed the police to apply thesqueeze, especially in the Telengana region. The region also witnessed thehighest number of Naxalite fatalities in 2005, with 93 out of the 167 Naxalites(ICM data) killed across the ten Districts. Significant improvement wasalso witnessed in the ‘heartland districts’, such as Karimnagar, Nizamabadand Adilabad.

According to Superintendent ofPolice Devendra Singh Chauhan, Naxalite violence has come down drastically overthe years in Karimnagar district. During 2005, out of 12 incidents of exchangeof fire, a total of 20 Naxalites, including 10 CPI-Maoist, six Janasakthi andthe remaining Singareni Karmika Samakhya (Sikasa) activists were killed. Amongthe top cadres who were killed in encounters were the Janashakti ‘statecommittee member’ Riaz and the Maoist ‘east division committee member’Dharmula Mallikarjun. There was a record number of 104 surrenders during theyear.

Similarly, in the NizamabadDistrict, Naxalite activity was brought under control in 2005, with theexception of the encounter at Manala hills on March 7, in which 10 Maoists werekilled. The Maoists received a major setback in this operation as its‘district committee secretary’ Ramesh was eliminated. 17 Maoists surrenderedin the District, opting to join the mainstream, as compared to just one in 2004.The police also arrested 79 Maoists and two Janashakti Naxalites in 2005.

In Adilabad District, policeaction over the past five years has led to the neutralisation of 50 Maoists,including three of ‘district committee secretary’ rank, three of ‘districtcommittee member’ rank and nine ‘dalam commanders’. Some 242Naxalites surrendered over this period.

Successes were also seen inWarangal District, when on March 19, 2005, CPI-Maoist ‘North Telangana SpecialZonal Committee’ member, Damera Vijaykumar Swamy alias Yadanna, and three ofhis associates were killed in an encounter. Similarly, in Mahabubnagar District,on April 2, ‘district committee’ and ‘action team’ member, GajjiSrisailam and his wife, Puspakka were killed at Achampet.

Following reverses in theTelengana region, the Maoist ‘hideouts’ in the Nallamalla Forest region,spanning five districts, also came under increased combing operations. Thissustained operation has been achieved through inter-district cooperation betweenthe police officials at the highest level. For instance, following reports ofmovement of cadres from the Telengana region to the Nallamala forests, seniorpolice officials of the five districts of Kurnool, Mahabubnagar, Chittoor,Cuddapah and Anantapur met in February 2006, and prepared an action plan to dealwith the development. Intensive combing operations in the Nallamalla Forest haveachieved positive results. February 2006 reports indicated that the CPI-Maoisthad to postpone its ‘AP state committee’ meeting due to the heightenedsecurity presence. The ‘state committee’ meet was supposed to be held inFebruary at Erragundlapalem in Prakasam district, but was cancelled at the lastminute after police moved their forces to the meeting venue in the NallamallaForest. All alternative plans for the meeting also fell through due tointensified combing operations.

The Maoist threat in Andhra,however, is far from being neutralized, or even adequately contained. As in thepast (in 2002, for instance), the outfit has cleverly shifted its operationstowards the Rayalaseema and the coastal districts (especially the districtsadjoining Orissa), as it comes under pressure in the ‘heartland’ areas.According to police intelligence reports, in the month of February 2006, Maoist dalamsfrom Mahabubnagar and the South Telangana Districts were moving into Guntur andPrakasam district areas, while some of the top cadres of CPI-Maoist migratedinto the Andhra-Orissa Border (AOB) region which, due to the hilly terrain andpresence of easy escape routes, combined with weaker policing in Orissa,provides significant advantage to the Maoists. To further strengthen andconsolidate their presence in this region, the Maoists have also formed aseparate ‘Orissa state committee’.

Increased Maoist activitieshave been witnessed in the districts adjoining Orissa for quite some time now,interspersed with major attacks like the one at Kuneru. On December 25, 2005,Maoists shot dead four Railway Protection Force (RPF) personnel, and criticallywounded another two in an attack at the Kuneru Railway Station in Vizianagaram district.The extremists also took away INR 1.3 million and eight weapons being carried bythe police personnel. The incident happened within hours on the heels of aMaoist attack on the Sileru police station in Visakhapatnam District on December24 night, in which one policeman was injured. Srikakulam district has alsowitnessed significant Maoist activity, especially in the Uddahanam area, Bhamini,Vajrapukotthuru, Palasa, Mandasa and Sitampeta mandals.

Following the attack on theRamagiri Udaigiri town in Orissa on March 24, the Andhra Pradesh Police had tointensify its efforts to prevent the movement of cadres into Andhra through theSrikakulam, Vishakhapatnam and Vizianagaram Districts.

The Maoist tactics tostrengthen and expand in Orissa, with the help of the cadres operating in AndhraPradesh, have also borne fruit, as revealed in a White Paper on the law andorder situation tabled in the Orissa State Assembly in March 2006, which noted:"Naxalite activities, which were reported from southern and northern districtsof the state, have affected (the) law and order situation of the state. Of the30 districts of the state, Naxalites were active in 14 districts in 2005."

The diminution in violence inAndhra does not, consequently, indicate that the Maoists are in any measure aspent force. There has, in fact, been a conscious decision on the part of theMaoists to retreat into the forests and safer areas, rather than emerge invillage areas, where police presence could lead to losses. Although, this‘moderate’ or tactical line of retreat may suggest a temporary setback,there are other areas transcending state boundaries (Chhattisgarh, Orissa,Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh), where the consolidation continues.

The Maoists have also continuedwith weapons upgradation and improvements in their technological capacities, asrevealed, for instance, when the Nizamabad district police seized a mobilefrequency modulation (FM) set following the arrest of a Maoist from Akkannapet railwaystation on March 6. Nizamabad Range DIG Anjani Kumar stated that the seizure wasthe "tip of the iceberg", and the Maoists are able to listen in on policecommunications through improvised communication systems manufactured by in-houseexperts. Further, the Maoists have acquired the technology to blast claymoremines using wireless sets as remote controlling devices. They can now blast aclaymore mine from a distance of five km making use of the US-made Icom IC-V8wireless sets, considered to be the best in the world. Prakasam Superintendentof Police N. Balasubramanyam disclosed that the police had seized 30 suchwireless sets from the place of an encounter in which three persons were killedin the district on February 7, 2006,. The seizure confirmed the fears of thepolice that Maoists now had the capacities to use the wireless sets not only forcommunications but also as remote control devices to blast claymore mines. Ademonstration of this capability was provided on April 8, 2006, when a StateLegislator belonging to the Congress Party, Udumula Sreenivas Reddy, narrowlysurvived a landmine attack at Kakarla in the Prakasam District.

Maoists have also continuedwith extortion and to maintain their linkages with their established sources ofincome in Andhra Pradesh. On April 4, 2006, the Anantapur district policearrested a Maoist, Venkatrami Reddy, and seized Rs 300,000 in cash. Reddy wasarrested when he was en route to hand over the cash collected from acontractor of the Hendri Niva irrigation project to the ‘Penna Area committeesecretary’, Kranti. The police officer on special duty, G. Vijaykumar,disclosed that the Maoist was acting as a key member of the dalam (squad)and had already extorted about Rs 5 million from contractors executing works inUravakonda, Guntakal, Vajrakarur, Pamidi and Garladinne and had handed it overto the Penna Ahobilam dalam. In a similar operation on April 3, 2006,police had recovered Rs five million from two Maoists in Mahabubnagar district.

Andhra Pradesh has had cyclicalperiods in its history, when the state machinery has been able to gain atransient upper hand over the Naxalites, only to be circumvented by politicalopportunism, and the failure to implement the very reforms that are loudlyproclaimed whenever Naxalite violence peaks. Focused counter-insurgencycampaigns fractured by intervals of political interference and slackness havecontributed to a patchy record. The state machinery has once again succeeded inmaking life difficult for the Maoists, but their existence is not in question.The top rung Maoist leadership in the ‘state committee’ continues to surviveand operate, although the police have neutralized a few ‘district committee’leaders. The state has also failed to comprehensively root out their presence inany of their areas of activity. The Maoists continue to display high levels ofingenuity and craft, lying low, as in the past, in times of stress, devisingmeans to sustain their existence till a favourable and lame polity allows themto hit back again.

Saji Cherian is Research Associate, Institute for ConflictManagement. Courtesy, the South Asia Intelligence Review of the South AsiaTerrorism Portal