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Maoist Rebels Kill 75 Indian Police in Biggest Strike (Update3)
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By Bibhudatta Pradhan
April 6 (Bloomberg) -- Maoist rebels killed at least 75 police in a central Indian jungle ambush, their biggest strike against security forces in a decades-long conflict.
Rebels attacked a team from the Central Reserve Police Force in the Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh, S.R.P. Kalluri, a deputy inspector general of police, said by telephone. The “savage” attacks show “the brutality the Maoists are capable of,” Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said in New Delhi.
The attacks are a setback to Chidambaram’s efforts to rid India’s eastern states of left-wing guerillas and open up regions rich in iron ore, coal, bauxite and manganese to investment. NMDC Ltd. operates its biggest iron-ore mine and Essar Steel Ltd. plans to build a $1.5 billion steel plant in the district where the rebels struck.
“Unless you improve force capability and force capacities, these incidents will keep on occurring again and again,” said Ajai Sahni, executive director of the New Delhi-based Institute for Conflict Management. Today’s is the largest number of fatalities “inflicted in any single operation,” Sahni said.
Chhattisgarh is at the center of the country’s fight with the insurgents, who say they are fighting for the rights of millions of impoverished villagers. Chidambaram, 64, last year started a nationwide hunt for the rebels in their strongholds, an offensive referred to as Operation Green Hunt.
Neighboring States
The guerrillas operate in at least 11 of 28 states. The left-wing movement takes its name from a radical 1967 peasant uprising in a village called Naxalbari in the eastern state of West Bengal, and was greeted as “a peal of spring thunder” by China’s People Daily at its birth.
Initially inspired by Maoist ideology, it has pressed a campaign of violence against the government, police and landowners in a class war that seeks to install communist rule.
Civilians are caught in the crossfire. “Government and Maoist claims to be acting on behalf of India’s poorest people can be undermined by the atrocities by both sides against these very same people,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, senior South Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch, said in a November statement.
“Local people are at risk of being caught in the middle of the fighting -- killed, wounded, abducted, forced to take sides, and then risk retribution.”
Chidambaram has said he is willing to talk to the guerrillas if they first stop violence.
4-Day Offensive
The rebels killed more than 7,500 people since 1998, according to government figures. In a series of recent raids, the group’s fighters killed at least 10 police in the state of Orissa on April 4, and 28 people in West Bengal in February.
The officers who died today were returning from a four-day operation against the insurgents when they were targeted, the NDTV 24x7 network said. The rebels set off a landmine and opened fire from surrounding hills, it reported.
“Something has gone very wrong,” Chidambaram said. “They seem to have walked into a trap set by the Naxalites,” using the name used in India for the guerrillas.
NMDC, Asia’s third-largest iron-ore producer, said the attack hadn’t disrupted its Bailadila mines in the district.
“We have not been affected and mining operations in the Bailadila mines is normal,” NMDC Chairman Rana Som said in a telephone interview. “The mine area is surrounded by several layers of fencing and we monitor the area from watchtowers.”
Essar Steel, India’s third-largest producer, plans to build a steel mill in the district and Tata Steel Ltd. intends to construct a $2.2 billion plant in neighboring Bastar district.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh aims to boost growth to 10 percent, a pace needed to pull 828 million people living on less than $2 a day out of poverty. The tactics adopted by the rebels will hamper industrial growth, the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry said in a November report.
Singh Warning
“Just when India needs to ramp up its industrial machine to lock in growth and when foreign companies are joining the party, Naxalites are clashing with mining and steel companies essential to India’s long-term success,” the report said.
Singh has described the Maoist problem as one of the major threats India faces.
The rebels regularly carry out attacks on security forces, local political leaders and key transport infrastructure in some of India’s poorest regions. In 2009, Maoist violence left 908 civilians and security personnel dead, including 290 in Chhattisgarh.
To contact the reporter on this story: Bibhudatta Pradhan in New Delhi at [email protected].
Last Updated: April 6, 2010 09:06 EDT
Share Business ExchangeTwitterFacebook| Email | Print | A A A
By Bibhudatta Pradhan
April 6 (Bloomberg) -- Maoist rebels killed at least 75 police in a central Indian jungle ambush, their biggest strike against security forces in a decades-long conflict.
Rebels attacked a team from the Central Reserve Police Force in the Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh, S.R.P. Kalluri, a deputy inspector general of police, said by telephone. The “savage” attacks show “the brutality the Maoists are capable of,” Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said in New Delhi.
The attacks are a setback to Chidambaram’s efforts to rid India’s eastern states of left-wing guerillas and open up regions rich in iron ore, coal, bauxite and manganese to investment. NMDC Ltd. operates its biggest iron-ore mine and Essar Steel Ltd. plans to build a $1.5 billion steel plant in the district where the rebels struck.
“Unless you improve force capability and force capacities, these incidents will keep on occurring again and again,” said Ajai Sahni, executive director of the New Delhi-based Institute for Conflict Management. Today’s is the largest number of fatalities “inflicted in any single operation,” Sahni said.
Chhattisgarh is at the center of the country’s fight with the insurgents, who say they are fighting for the rights of millions of impoverished villagers. Chidambaram, 64, last year started a nationwide hunt for the rebels in their strongholds, an offensive referred to as Operation Green Hunt.
Neighboring States
The guerrillas operate in at least 11 of 28 states. The left-wing movement takes its name from a radical 1967 peasant uprising in a village called Naxalbari in the eastern state of West Bengal, and was greeted as “a peal of spring thunder” by China’s People Daily at its birth.
Initially inspired by Maoist ideology, it has pressed a campaign of violence against the government, police and landowners in a class war that seeks to install communist rule.
Civilians are caught in the crossfire. “Government and Maoist claims to be acting on behalf of India’s poorest people can be undermined by the atrocities by both sides against these very same people,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, senior South Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch, said in a November statement.
“Local people are at risk of being caught in the middle of the fighting -- killed, wounded, abducted, forced to take sides, and then risk retribution.”
Chidambaram has said he is willing to talk to the guerrillas if they first stop violence.
4-Day Offensive
The rebels killed more than 7,500 people since 1998, according to government figures. In a series of recent raids, the group’s fighters killed at least 10 police in the state of Orissa on April 4, and 28 people in West Bengal in February.
The officers who died today were returning from a four-day operation against the insurgents when they were targeted, the NDTV 24x7 network said. The rebels set off a landmine and opened fire from surrounding hills, it reported.
“Something has gone very wrong,” Chidambaram said. “They seem to have walked into a trap set by the Naxalites,” using the name used in India for the guerrillas.
NMDC, Asia’s third-largest iron-ore producer, said the attack hadn’t disrupted its Bailadila mines in the district.
“We have not been affected and mining operations in the Bailadila mines is normal,” NMDC Chairman Rana Som said in a telephone interview. “The mine area is surrounded by several layers of fencing and we monitor the area from watchtowers.”
Essar Steel, India’s third-largest producer, plans to build a steel mill in the district and Tata Steel Ltd. intends to construct a $2.2 billion plant in neighboring Bastar district.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh aims to boost growth to 10 percent, a pace needed to pull 828 million people living on less than $2 a day out of poverty. The tactics adopted by the rebels will hamper industrial growth, the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry said in a November report.
Singh Warning
“Just when India needs to ramp up its industrial machine to lock in growth and when foreign companies are joining the party, Naxalites are clashing with mining and steel companies essential to India’s long-term success,” the report said.
Singh has described the Maoist problem as one of the major threats India faces.
The rebels regularly carry out attacks on security forces, local political leaders and key transport infrastructure in some of India’s poorest regions. In 2009, Maoist violence left 908 civilians and security personnel dead, including 290 in Chhattisgarh.
To contact the reporter on this story: Bibhudatta Pradhan in New Delhi at [email protected].
Last Updated: April 6, 2010 09:06 EDT
