Army’s entry into Maoist zone?

Sujeet kumar
The Statesman
RAIPUR, 2 June, 2011: A top counter-terrorism expert and senior police officers have hailed the entry of Indian Army troopers into the country’s worst insurgency-hit area in Chhattisgarh saying “it will make a major psychological impact on Maoist militants.”
A contingent of more than 500 troopers of Indian Army’s central command have descended for the first time on the nerve centre of Maoist terrorism in Chhattisgarh’s restive Bastar region this week amid growing call by people that Army be allowed to take on Leftist insurgents in the state.
But the Army has made it clear that it stepped into Maoist land only for “jungle warfare training not for anti-Maoist operation.”
“Maoists will feel the heat of Army’s entry in their terrain because the insurgents will have a feeling all the time that tigers (Army men) have positioned themselves just outside their den,’’ said Brigadier (retired) BK Ponwar, a former commandant of Indian Army’s Counter-Insurgency and Jungle Warfare School based at Vairengte in Mizoram.
Ponwar is now director of Bastar-region based Counter Terrorism and Jungle Warfare College instituted by the Chhattisgarh government in 2005 to impart training to policemen to “fight guerrilla like a guerrilla”.
“Army’s entry into Red zone will have a huge psychological advantage over Maoists who were freely roaming in the sprawling area though Army’s role will be restricted in Bastar,’’ Ponwar said, adding “the presence of Army in Red zone is going to be highly significant”. The jawans will go through jungle warfare training in the Abujhmad forested area in Bastar region which is the nerve centre of Maoist militants since late 1980s.
“The Army jawans' training will be held right under the nose of Maoists, but men will not carry out any anti-Maoist operation but will fire at Maoists in self-defence, if attacked,’’ defence sources claim.
The Chhattisgarh government has agreed to hand over a huge forested terrain up to 750 sq km to the Army for developing it as a base for jungle warfare training in the heart of Maoists territory where top leaders of the banned outfit Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) have been holed up for years. Brigadier Amrik Singh, Chhattisgarh and Orissa sub-area commander, made it clear in Raipur on Tuesday that Army jawans have come to Bastar for the sole purpose of receiving training in a difficult forested terrain.
But top officials at police headquarters here are amused now with the Army’s entry in the Red zone where rebels have carried out a series of deadly attacks on police, para-military forces and civilians since 2005, including the massacre of 76 policemen in a single attack in April last year.
"They (Maoists) are on a killing spree since 2005 in Bastar. They have significantly increased their command areas in the past five-six years by recruiting minors in thousands plus monthly-paid fighters who have access to rocket launchers and mortars but it’s sure that the Army’s entry into their zone will create a lot of serious tension for them,’’ remarked an additional director-general rank police official.