True colour of Maoists .... Naxals want hinterland to remain backward

Fighting against state ‘apathy’, Maoists destroy all signs of development
Jun 20, 2011, 02.09am IST TNN
[Vishwa Mohan]

NEW DELHI: Maoists may cite ‘under-development’ of certain areas as one of the reasons for their violent movement against state "discrimination" but they leave no stone unturned to keep "development" at bay in their strongholds.

The Maoists attacked 1,241 ‘economic targets’ during 2007-11, damaging railway property, telephone towers, electricity transmission lines, power plants, roads and mines across nine states in the country.

Home ministry’s latest statistics on Naxal violence (from January 2007 to June 16 this year) shows that the Maoists repeatedly selected such targets in four states – Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa and Bihar – where their presence is substantial. Five states -- West Bengal, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh -- witnessed relatively lesser number of such incidents.

Besides 465 roads, the banned CPI (Maoist) targeted 188 railway property including stations, crossings and tracks; equal number of school buildings; 187 telephone exchanges/towers; 69 panchayat bhawans; 45 electricity transmission lines; 30 mines; nine power plants and 60 other ‘economic targets’ like solar plates, cement plants and other manufacturing/industrial production units during the period.

The statistics show that they selected their targets carefully. They attacked ‘symbols of development’ in hinterlands like panchayat bhawans and school buildings as well as means of communication and transportation, in a move to virtually cut off the ‘under-developed’ areas from the mainstream.

Their attack on school buildings had earlier been interpreted as the ultras’ attempt to destroy all such places which were being occupied by security personnel. But this interpretation went for a toss when officials in the Naxal management division of the home ministry found that only one-fourth of the total 188 school buildings destroyed by Maoists were home to security personnel at any point of time.

"Certainly, the Maoists do not want to have signs of development in their strongholds, defying the very basis of their so-called people’s struggle against the state’s alleged apathy and discrimination towards under-developed/tribal areas," an official said.

The compilation shows that 2011 witnessed attacks on 142 ‘economic targets’ with latest being reported from Bihar on Wednesday when the ultras torched a railway station near Patna and blew up six mobile towers in Gaya.

Although the number of such targets this year (January–June) is less compared to the corresponding period last year, it has been due to increased security measures like deploying additional central forces and stepping up joint operations in the violence-hit states.

The years 2009 and 2010 were the worst, not only in terms of losing public property but also in terms of ‘deaths’ in Naxal violence. As many as 1,005 people were killed last year in 2,212 incidents as against 908 in 2,258 incidents in 2009; 721 in 1,591 incidents in 2008 and 696 in 1,565 incidents in 2007. This year has so far seen 226 deaths in 733 incidents.