Maoists add rocket launchers to arsenal

Jun 07, 2012 - Rajnish Sharma |

New Delhi

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The NIA has revealed that the Maoists are in the final stages of ‘fine-tuning and calibrating’ technology to manufacture rocket launchers.

The NIA has been carrying out painstaking investigations over the last six months into Maoists acquiring sophisticated weapons technology.

Highly-placed intelligence sources said investigations have also revealed that the Maoists want to use these rocket launchers not just against the paramilitary but also against the Army, which plans to open jungle warfare schools in the Maoist heartland.

It has also been learnt that Maoists have pumped in about `40 crore over the last 12 years to acquire technology for manufacturing rocket launchers. The NIA was initially tipped off about the Maoists getting sophisticated weapons late last year. Then the arrest of Sadanala Ramakrishna alias Techie Anna, the head of the Maoist technical committee, in March helped the NIA get more information on this aspect.

Techie Anna has informed the investigating agencies that the Maoists had already manufactured nearly 8,000 rocket launchers but were unhappy with their quality as they were still a bit crude. Since then it has been learnt that the Maoists have made significant progress in rocket-launcher technology.

What is also bothering the intelligence agencies is that they still have not been able to recover this huge cache of rocket launchers.

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