MAOISTS TRADE BULLETS WITH DANCE AND SONGS FOR A CHANGE. (TAPE NO 5227)

Ani September 22nd, 2009

NATURAL WITH HINDI SPEECH

DURATION: 2.43

SOURCE: ANI

TV AND WEB RESTRICTIONS: NONE

Maoists trade bullets with dance and songs for a change in India’s eastern Gaya.

Maoist rebels in India’s eastern Gaya sang and danced to mark the fifth anniversary of the inception of Communist Party of India-Maoist formed with a merger of the Maoist Communist Centre (MCC) and the People’s War Group on September 21, 2004.

SHOWS:

GAYA, BIHAR, INDIA (SEPTEMBER 21, 2009) (ANI-ACCESS ALL)

1. MAOISTS PRACTISING WAR TACTICS AMIDST MUSIC

2. VARIOUS OF MAOISTS DANCING WITH GUN IN HANDS

3. (SOUNDBITE) (Hindi) PARAMJEET, MAOIST COMMANDER, SAYING: “Our party was divided in two parts. The other party worked separately for some time but later the two groups merged. We are celebrating the merger because we all are brothers.”

Maoists target only corrupt people: Jharkhand Governor K Sankaranarayanan

Maoists at a memorial for those killed in police encounters in the Nallamalla forest, south of Hyderabad.

RANCHI: The Governor had recently said that Maoists target only corrupt people. Reacting to that, Sinha said by issuing such statements, Sankaranarayanan has branded all martyrs and political leaders killed by Maoists as corrupt. “It is unfortunate that a person of Governor’s stature could issue such a deplorable statement. He must give an explanation and abstain from glorifying the outlaws,” Sinha said at a press conference here on Monday.

He further stated that such statements would only encourage Maoists and hamper police morale on the other. “No policeman would dare sacrifice his life once he realises that the government will brand him as corrupt if killed by Maoists,” said Sinha.

The former Union finance minister even accused Congress of patronising corrupt officials to divert NREGA (National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) funds for election expenses. “At a recent meeting with district officials, the government agreed that around Rs 1,000 crore under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act was surrendered. It is shameful and the governor should be held responsible for this,” he said.

Chopper talk amid search for hostages – Helipads coming up in Palamau, Chatra

SUMAN K. SHRIVASTAVA
Saranda forest

Ranchi, Sept. 11: Jharkhand will soon initiate a pilot project to build helipads at police stations in Palamau and Chatra districts to regain strategic advantage in the fight against Maoists who have so far managed to use the region’s dense forests and hills to their advantage.

“The helipads will be used for anti-Maoist operations,” director-general of police (DGP) V.D. Ram told The Telegraph, indicating that once ready, the helipads would help in the movement of security forces.

Police officers point out it was extremely difficult to move about in the deep forests as Maoists had riddled it with landmines. The geographical terrain of both the districts, they said, put the extremists at a distinct advantage which the helipads would ultimately negate, adding the state could well plan more such helipads in other districts.

There are 15 police stations in Palamau and 13 in Chatra.

United in protest over acquisition

OUR CORRESPONDENT
Villagers at the anti-land acquisition rally in Potka on Friday. (Bhola Prasad)

Jamshedpur, Sept. 11: Visthapan Virodhi Ekta Manch, an outfit spearheading the protest against Potka land acquisition bids, today urged the governor to scrap all MoUs signed between the state and firms.

Instead, the protesters demanded that the state concentrate on better irrigation for paddy farmers at Potka (East Singhbhum). Traders and farmers also submitted a memorandum of demands to the governor and the Potka circle officer after taking out a rally in front of the Potka block office.

Around 5,000 people participated in the rally that begun at 12.30pm and ended late in the afternoon. Villagers from Nandigram and Singur (Bengal), along with their counterparts from Gumla, Godda, Ranchi and Hazaribagh, were also present. Tribal women were carrying bows and arrows, while the men held placards denouncing the acquisition of “farmland” for industrialisation.

Report on a recent mass rally against land acquisition in Hazaribagh, Jharkhand

Source: Sanhati

September 1, 2009 By Manali Chakrabarti.

Main yehan Nandigram bana doonga (I’ll make this a Nandigram)

This is, apparently, what the Deputy Commissioner of Hazaribagh, Mr Vinay Chaubey, said on the 8th of August 2009, to a group of villagers in Arahara village, in the state of Jharkhand, who have been refusing to part with their land for compensation. The heavily armed police cover gave credence to this arrogant assertion.

The villagers of Arahara are part of a movement spread over 186 villages in the Karnpura valley in Jharkhand. Extending over three blocks – Barkagaon, Keredari and Tandwa, the beautiful green valley of Karnpura, is surrounded by hills (part of the Chota Nagpur range) on three sides, and has a thick lush forest cover too. The valley which is criss-crossed by numerous small water bodies including perennial rivers also has one of the most fertile agricultural lands in the country. At present the valley supplies vegetables to the surrounding areas and even up to major cities like Patna and Kolkata. Like in the rest of Jharkhand there is a significant tribal population in this region.

Jharkhand: SAP jawans ambushed, 1 dead

Two trucks that were carrying red chillies torched by Naxalites during the recent bandh. Picture by Prashant Mitra

Ranchi, Aug. 27: Maoists spilled blood once again last evening, ambushing a group of unarmed Special Auxiliary Police (SAP) jawans, killing one and leaving two injured at Chormunda in Latehar district, about 145km from the capital.

A plainclothes squad of seven security personnel were escorting company commander Balbinder Singh from Mahuadand to the SAP-1 base camp at Netarhat — the proposed site for a jungle warfare school for policemen — around 6.15pm when the rebels swooped on them.

Armed with semi-automatic rifles, at least 50 men surrounded the SAP jeep in Chormundi village, 17km from Mahuadand and 5km from Netarhat, and opened fire.

‘Arrests fuelled violent incidents in Jharkhand’ PUDR

New Delhi, Aug 27: Peoples Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR) would like to bring to notice that the Jharkhand police who had picked up two activists of CPI (Maoist) party, identified by the Ministry of Home Affairs as Amit Bagchi and Shaufeeq Mandal on 19 August, have finally produced them after a gap nearly 6 days in court on the 25th. According to the Article 22(2) of the Indian Constitution, an arrested person should be produced before the Magistrate within 24 hours of their arrest. Since the arrest was made on the 19th, the question that comes up is why did the police take 6 days before producing them before the magistrate?
A
In the past, incidents of Maoist leaders being picked up by the police and security forces in this manner have often been reported. Those picked up have been illegally confined for many days or have been shown to have been killed in fake encounters. In this case the failure to produce the activists has fuelled violent incidents by the Maoists including the uprooting of a railway track and destruction of a mobile phone towers.

Recognising the imperative for governments to follow the Constitution and the laws if it expects others to respect it, PUDR demands that the appropriate action should be taken against the concerned police officers to ensure that violations such as these are not repeated in future.

Death penalty for 2 Maoist activists

ISHVENDU JAIPURIAR

Hazaribagh, Aug. 26: A fast-track court in Chatra awarded the death penalty to two Maoists for killing a policeman, looting arms and torching a government vehicle in 1998. The fast-track court-III of Srikant Rai went through the evidence provided by the police — they had built a watertight case — and heard all 13 witnesses before coming out with the death verdict today, a first by any court in the district. According to sources, on November 24, 1998, a police team was in Atampur village of Simaria conducting raids. The group was ambushed by armed Maoists, who killed three persons on the spot. They were two policemen — Binod Singh and Yogendra Kumar Vats — besides a chowkidar’s son. The Maoists later looted the arms of the policemen and set their vehicle ablaze before fleeing. An FIR was lodged in Simaria (case no 85/98) and later two rebels were arrested — Krishna Ganjhu and Ramdev Mahto. Though this was a landmark judgment in Chatra, rebels have been awarded the death penalty before. In 2003, three extremists were awarded the death penalty by a Hazaribagh court for killing 14 people in Beltu, a remote village in Keredari block in April 2001. Chatra has suffered for long due to Maoist terror, having had to forgo any kind of development and associated benefits. When planners and those with construction projects came to the district, the rebels would strike, triggering panic and ensuring that others with similar ideas stayed away. Several policemen have been killed and, over the years, residents have come to terms with following Maoists’ diktat in order to live in peace.

Jharkhand: Maoists attack on CRPF patroling party

Bloodshed in bandh final hour
RAJ KUMAR

Ranchi, Aug. 26: A villager playing police guide was killed and a CRPF jawan injured when a squad of rebels led by sub-zonal commander Kundan Pahan ambushed a 38-member security party in Bundu barely an hour before the 48-hour CPI(Maoist) bandh drew to an end last night.

Deputy superintendent of police (DSP), Hatia, Rajeev Ranjan, who survived the attack, said police and CRPF personnel were returning from Ulida after a long-range patrol when the rebels struck.

Tired as they were, the jawans had stopped for some rest at Nawadih Middle School. The school, nestled between dense forests and hills about 35km from the capital on the Ranchi-Jamshedpur highway, made them easy targets.

An armed squad of 100 rebels surrounded the campus around 11pm and began firing indiscriminately from semi-automatic rifles. The security personnel scurried for cover, many taking shelter in classrooms on the 1.8-acre campus.

“Sukhram Munda, a village youth who was guiding us, was killed in the first hail of bullets. CRPF jawan Shivshankar Yadav was injured. We took position in eight classrooms and a gun battle ensued,” Ranjan said, adding that they exhausted 800 rounds during the encounter that lasted for three hours.

The DSP said that the rebels tried to demoralise the force by heckling them and asking them to surrender. “They kept saying that they had laid siege to the campus and we could not escape. Pahan himself was hollering at us,” he added.

Officer in charge of Lapung police station Kuldeep Toppo, who also survived the attack, admitted that he had never faced such a tricky situation. “It was a difficult challenge for us because we had no long-range firearms. I found myself helpless with a 9mm pistol. The encounter ended only after reinforcement and anti-landmine vehicles reached the spot. Bundu sub-divisional police officer Anand Joseph Tigga led the additional force to the school around 2am. We stayed on the campus till 7am,” he said.

A section of police officers said the patrol team had made a strategic mistake. “It was foolish to use the same route for entry and exit, besides entering a forested stretch at night,” one of them said not willing to be named. Senior police superintendent, Ranchi, Praveen Kumar, however, claimed that the security team had been caught unawares.

CRPF jawan Yadav has been admitted to hospital, where his condition is said to be stable. TT

Maoists attack CRPF camp in Ranchi village, 1 killed

RANCHI: A group of about 100 armed cadres of CPI(Maoist) attacked a CRPF camp at Nawadih village under Bundu police station in Ranchi district on
Tuesday night leaving a villager dead and a CRPF personnel injured. Two companies of 133-Delta battalion of CRPF are stationed in the village which is located in a Naxal stronghold.

Bundu SDPO Anand Joseph Tigga said the CRPF personnel were returning to their base camp at Bundu at around 10.30 pm when the Maoists launched the attack.

Tigga said the Maoists encircled the temporary CRPF camp at Nawadih and opened indiscriminate fire on the personnel. “The CRPF men opened retaliation fire. However, a jawan Shiv Shankar Yadav suffered a bullet injury in his neck,” he said.

The encounter continued for nearly two-and-a-half hours in which the CRPF fired three mortar rounds, six high explosives bombs. The two sides also exchanged about 2000 rounds of small arm fire. By the time reinforcement arrived, the rebels retreated into the jungles.

The body of a villager, identified as Sukhdeo Munda, was recovered at the encounter site on Wednesday morning with bullet marks on his back and leg. It is believed that Munda was killed in the crossfire.

Tigga said the Maoists squad was led by “zonal commander” Kundan Pahan.

“It seems they were on a look out to carry out attacks on NH-33 but got into an encounter with the CRPF personnel quite by chance,” he said.

Sources said the Kundan Pahan-led Maoist squad were on the lookout to carry out a major strike on the security personnel following the arrest of seven hardcore rebels, including Maoist “sub-zonal commander” David by ranchi police on August 24. TOI

CPI Maoist PB Member arrested in Jharkhand

Ranchi, Aug 25 (IANS) Ranchi Police Tuesday confirmed that they have arrested two top Maoist leaders. The Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) had called a two-day shutdown in five states to demand the release of the two leaders.

“Two top Maoist leaders were arrested Monday evening from the Ranchi railway station. The arrested Maoist leaders are Amitabh Bagchi alias Anil and Taufid Mullah alias Kartik,” Deputy Inspector General of Police (Ranchi range) R.K. Mallik told reporters here Tuesday evening.

He denied that the two were arrested Aug 19 as claimed by the outlawed CPI-Maoist. Anil is a politburo member and Kartik, a state committee member of the CPI-Maoist.

Both were presented before a Ranchi court and they have been taken on remand by the police.

CPI-Maoist has called two days strike in five states – Jharkhand, Orissa, Bihar, West Bengal and Chattisgarh to protest the arrest of Anil and Kartik.

Maoist strike affected life in rural parts of the state Tuesday. No long-route buses were plying in Jharkhand.

Maoist guerrillas are active in 18 of the 24 districts of Jharkhand. Nearly 1,500 people have been killed in Maoist-related violence in the last eight years.

Launch anti-Maoist operation in Jharkhand immediately: WB govt

New Delhi: The Left Front government on Monday asked the Centre to immediately launch an anti-Maoist operation in Jharkhand in tandem with the ongoing joint operations in West Bengal, saying the Left extremists were using their bases in the neighbouring state to launch attacks.

Noting that there was a “significant” increase in Left extremist violence in Bengal this year, Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said as many as 18 police stations in three districts were affected by Maoist violence.

Bhattacharjee, whose speech at the Conference on Internal Security was read out in absentia by Chief Secretary Asoke Mohan Chakraborti, said there was “a need to launch such an operation without delay and to continue the operation in our state.”

The Chief Minister said the Maoists operating in West Bengal were using their bases in Jharkhand to mobilise their squads.

“The joint operation (in West Bengal) can be successful only if a similar operation in launched in Jharkhand in collaboration with our state,” he said, adding the operation by Central forces and the state police has been “acclaimed by a large section of the people.”

He said it (anti-maoist operation) has “restored order in most of the villages and made it possible to restart development work.”

Noting that 59 civilians and police personnel have been killed in Maoist violence this year as against only 29 last year, Bhattacharjee said the second phase of counter- insurgency operation was in progress and 67 Maoists have been arrested since the joint operation was launched on June 18.

“Intelligence inputs indicate that three squads of 20-25 armed persons are still in the area, staying mostly in the forests,” he said.

The joint operations to regain control over Lalgarh has led to the completion of the road-opening phase, the Chief Minister said, adding that control has been established over the road connecting Pirakata, Bhimpur, Lalgarh, Kantapahari, Ramgarh, Kadasole, Pingboni and Goaltore.

“This had the effect of driving the Maoist squads out of their strongholds,” Bhattacharjee said.

On relief and developmental activities being carried out in the affected areas by the Left Front government, he said a programme was launched for distribution of dry food to families who have lost income opportunities when the operation was launched.

“This was followed by a programme of expediting irrigation and forestry and the supply of drinking water and health services,” he added.

Bhattacharjee could not attend the Conference convened by the Prime Minister due to fever. Chakraborti and Home Secretary Ardhendu Sen attended the meeting.

Bureau Report