NAXAL/ MAOISTS- 2010 - Indian Social Institute

Abducted cops: Chhattigarh holds 'secret' talks with Maoists
With the 48-hour Maoists' deadline set to end on Tuesday evening, a top police source said the
Chhattisgarh government was holding “secret” talks with the rebels for the safe release of four abducted
policemen. "The government has established a back-door contact with a section of the military unit of the
outlawed Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist). It is holding secret talks with the rebels," a top
source here at police headquarters told IANS. "We are looking into their (Maoists) demands. We have
conveyed our intention that deadline should be extended comprehensively, any demand can't be met with
a gun-loaded trigger put on our abducted cops’ heads," the source added. However, the Bharatiya Janata
Party (BJP) government is tightlipped over the talk issue and has even refused to have engaged in any
talks with the guerrillas. Maoists on September 19 abducted seven policemen from the Bhopalpatnam
area of Bijapur, over 500 km from Raipur, close to the Andhra Pradesh border. Three policemen were
killed a day later while assistant sub-inspector Sukhram Bhagat, constables B. Toppo, Narendra Bhosle
and Subhash Ratre were held captive to bargain with the authorities. After a week of uncertainty over the
fate of the abducted cops, Maoists on Sunday evening set a 48-hour deadline for releasing them. The
rebels dropped a few handwritten leaflets in Bijapur district's interiors stating their demands. "The Maoists
have mainly demanded immediate halt of an anti-Maoist drive Green Hunt, release of a few people of four
villages of Bijapur district arrested on charges of unlawful activities, judicial probe into alleged fake
encounters and initiating peace talks," state director general of police (DGP) Vishwa Ranjan told IANS.
(AA, 28/9/2010)
58% in AP say Naxalism is good, finds TOI poll
A clear 58% majority of those polled in Maoist-dominant areas of AP, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh,
Maharashtra and Orissa said Naxalism had actually been good for their area. India's biggest internal
security threat, as the Prime Minister famously described it, may be worse than you thought. That's
because even in Andhra Pradesh, where the battle against the Maoists has apparently been won, it turns
out that the government is losing the battle for the minds and hearts of the people. It's a debate that's
been raging within the Congress, and outside it. Should the government adopt a largely law-and-order
attitude towards the Maoists and deal with them like criminals or should the focus be more on cutting the
ground from under their feet through a development agenda that wins over the population of the affected
areas? An exclusive survey of the once Maoist-dominated districts of the Telengana region by IMRB,
well-known market research organisation, for The Times of India has found that while attitudes towards
the rebels are ambivalent, the condemnation of the government and its means of tackling the problem is
quite clear. The findings raise disturbing questions about whether focusing largely on the policing aspects
of the problem may be a flawed strategy in the long run. They also throw up another poser: Has the battle
in AP truly been won or can the Maoists stage a comeback in a few years? Tied to this is the question of
how the Maoists are viewed by the populace of these parts. Are they perceived essentially as a
bloodthirsty, extortionist bunch or as rebels standing up for people's rights? TOI decided to do an opinion
poll of the affected areas to find out. The problem, however, was that this was a region where pollsters
found very difficult to enter. We finally decided to conduct the survey in those areas of Andhra Pradesh
which were till not too long ago strongholds of the Naxalites but where their activities have been checked.
The survey was conducted, therefore, in five districts of the Telengana region Adilabad, Nizamabad,
Karimnagar, Warangal and Khammam. These districts were chosen not only because they were till
recently severely Naxal-affected, but also because of their proximity to current hotbeds in Chattisgarh and
Maharashtra. To tap into the mood of the aam admi in these areas, the survey was restricted to the not so
well off socio-economic categories, SEC B and SEC C and to men and women between the ages of 25
and 50. What we found has come as an eye-opener for us and should be worrying for everybody. The
state may have won the battle of the guns, but the Maoists are clearly ahead in the perception game. This
is particularly true in the districts of Warangal and Nizamabad as the accompanying charts show only too
clearly. The root cause of the disaffection is the overwhelming feeling of neglect of the areas by the
government. About two-thirds expressed this view and in Warangal the figure was as high as 81%. That,
you might say, is hardly alarming. Similar figures would probably be thrown up anywhere in India. True.
But when two-thirds also say that the Maoists are right in choosing the methods they have to highlight the
neglect, it is difficult to dismiss it as normal. Perhaps the most revealing answers are in response to
questions on whether the Maoists — still better known as Naxalites in this belt — were good or bad for
the region and whether their defeat by the AP police has made matters better or worse. Almost 60% said
the Naxalites were good for the area and only 34% felt life had improved since they were beaten back. As
for whether exploitation has increased after the Naxalite influence waned, 48% said it had against 38%
who said it hadn't, the rest offering no opinion. Those answers are buttressed by the responses to three
other questions. The first of these was on whether the characterization of the Naxals as extortionists and
mafia was accurate. Two-thirds disagreed. An elaboration of this came in response to a slightly more