Naxals expand reach to Punjab, Delhi, Northeast
The Maoists, now on a kidnapping spree in Orissa, have reportedly identified certain areas in which they would intensify activities and establish networks.
Besides bases in Bihar, Orissa, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh, the Maoists are now rapidly expanding to Assam, Tripura, Manipur, Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Haryana and even Delhi.
Delhi is being targeted primarily to tap the intelligentsia, so that they take up Maoist causes.
The home ministry had last year revealed, in response to a Lok Sabha question, that the Maoists were also trying to build bases in some Mahara-shtra districts, including Gadchiroli, Gondia and Chandrapur. The MHA said the Maoists planned to expand their reach to Nagpur, Wardha, Bhand-ara, Mumbai, Nashik and Pune. In the Northeast, they have already established a “working relationship” with insurgents in Manipur, and are tapping militant outfits and leaders in Assam and the Brahmaputra valley, sources said. A senior officer in Chhattisgarh told this newspaper that despite considerable efforts, the security forces could not make any major dent in the Dandakarnya region, a Naxalite stronghold. Differences between the Central forces and state police was one reason for the failure to infiltrate “liberated zones”, a source said. It has been estimated the Maoists have mobilised 15,000 fighters across different states.
Despite intensive government efforts to ban Maoist-sponsored web sites, there are still a number of websites on the Internet which “strongly oppose the efforts of the Indian government to suppress the publications and documents of the CPI(Maoist)”, a source said. One of them, bannedthought.net, runs a disclaimer claiming it has “no connection with the Communist Party of
India (Maoist), or with any other party”. But it says: “We do support the right of the people in both India and internationally to read the views and publications of the CPI(Mao-ist) and other parties.” On March 8, International Women’s Day, it exhorted women workers to “intensify protests against the reign of violence unleas-hed by the government”.
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