Special Report: Inside Gadchiroli

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The Gadchiroli blast site

Dressed casually in his office on the evening of March 26, during an official appointment with this reporter, deputy inspector general, Gadchiroli (anti-Naxal operations) Sunil Ramanand had said, “2011 had been an excellent year for us. We managed to penetrate deep inside Abhujmad forest in Chattisgarh, which is a strong base for Naxals. We have been provided everything by the government — right from modern arms, communication equipment to manpower and the tribals are now opening up to the police. In 2011, during the police recruitment drive, 76 per cent locals had applied and it is a myth that Gadchiroli is ‘a punishment posting’. All my officers, right from the superintendent of police, the additional superintendent to the sub-divisional police officers are all young and have volunteered to work here.”
The following day, at around 11.35 am 12 CRPF jawans were killed and 28 injured in a Naxal-triggered blast in Pestula village in Dhanora taluka. The jawans travelling in the bus were part of a fleet of vehicles going to the Gatta village for a civic action programme to bring villagers closer to the police.
From 2008 till date, 87 policemen have been killed by Naxals. Meanwhile, the police has killed 22 Naxals in different encounters. Further, 124 civilian casualties have also been reported during this period.
According to police sources, there are barely 500 Naxals in the district. However, the 10,000-strong district police and the CRPF (that was deployed in the district since 2009) force is still unable to tackle them head-on.
Last week, a letter was submitted to the Nagpur bench of the Bombay high court signed anonymously by Gadchiroli residents. The residents urged that the letter be treated as a PIL and requested the court to look into the failure of the government and the police in tackling the Naxal menace in the district.

So, what exactly is wrong in Gadchiroli?

Following a series of interviews with the armed forces, villagers, bureaucrats and locals, three major factors have emerged as plausible reasons for the government and police’s ineptitude to tackle the Naxal issue. These factors include lack of coordination and hostility between the civic administration and the police, lack of political will and wrong policies implemented in the state and Naxals having an edge over the police, as far as intelligence, strategies and local support are concerned. However, the problem is far deeper.

Unplanned deployment of police staff
A top bureaucrat pointed out that over 35 to 40 per cent supervisory posts of Class 1 and 2 officers in the district are vacant. “Most officers are posted here towards the fag end of their careers when they are about to retire. I have seen officers joining and then retiring in less than a few months in Gadchiroli. Most of these officers are also those who are reinstated after being suspended for graft charges. R.S. Kumbhare, a tehsildar in Dhanora was booked by the Anti-Corruption Bureau in Gondia and has now been reinstated here. Because most supervisory posts are either vacant or occupied by corrupt officials, development work has been hugely hampered,” he said.
Further, the officer said that the police is not able to counter their strategies, mostly because officials are transferred out of Gadchiroli as routine transfers, just when they start managing the situation in the district. “The Naxals take advantage of the forests. When they attack us, we are in the open, but when we have an encounter it is usually in the jungles. Since the forests are known to them, they manage to escape,” he said.

Erroneous policies
The officer also highlighted the wrong policies that have been implemented by the government in the district. “Under the self-employment scheme, tribals are trained in inverter and AC repair and women are trained to work in beauty parlours. How is this training going to help the struggling tribes, when there are hardly any ACs in the district?” he said.
Also, while there are schemes for project-affected people (PAP) in Gadchiroli, there aren’t any for Naxal-affected people. “PAP certificates are issued to those people who are affected either by earthquakes or irrigation projects. These people are eligible for reservations for jobs in government departments, but the same treatment is not extended to those affected by Naxalism,” he said.

No protection to civic workers
Another officer from the collectors’ office said that the police does not provide protection to civic administrators citing excuses because of which development work in the region is affected. “Under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana, it is mandatory to build roads in any place that is inhabited by more than 250 persons. There are 17 such roads that are yet to be built in Gadchiroli and tenders have been floated eight times for the same, but no contractor has bid for it. The contractors fear that the Naxals for whom such places are safe hideouts will damage their machinery and they will end up incurring losses. The police also do not send their men for visits to such places,” he said.

Naxals have better strategy
While senior police officers claim to have better weaponry and equipment than those used by the Naxals, a sub-inspector who has spent 30 years in service in Gadchiroli gave an insight into why the police is unable to handle the Naxals. The officer, who ironically, has a large poster of the Maratha warrior Shivaji posted on his wall said, “The Naxals are experts in guerrilla warfare. And they change their strategies every year. They hold meetings every year between February and May, which they term as Tactical Counter Offensive Campaign. Last month, according to our intelligence, such a meeting had taken place. Earlier, they used to murder a civilian and when the police reached the spot, they would kill the officers in an ambush. Then they started keeping a watch on police stations and planned attacks in the night. Now, they have started blasting police vehicles, in which only one Naxal triggers the blast and escapes,” he said.

Tribals caught in police-Naxal war
Corporator and activist Rohidas Raut explained the dilemma of tribals who are caught between the police and the Naxals. “If they turn to the police, the Naxals kill them brutally in front of everyone and whenever there is a Naxal incident in which an officer is killed, the policemen pick up a few villagers and interrogate them; often the police resorts to force. The Naxals take advantage of this and influence the villagers saying that they kill only those who become police informers. Hence, the villagers unwillingly have to support the Naxals fearing threat to their lives. Headmasters of schools do not stay in the schools during the night as Naxals often ask for keys of the school to hide. If they give it to them, they have to face police wrath and if they don’t, then of the Naxals,” he said.