Three-state Red corridor is new Maoist threat
In bad news for security forces, Maoists have managed to form a Red corridor that gives them easy movement and safe passage through three states – Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Jharkhand.
The term Red corridor has so far been used for the entire naxal-infested region in India that includes the three states as well as parts of Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal and Maharashtra.
But recent interrogation of arrested cadre has revealed it now literally means a narrow but contiguous strip that runs from the southern tip of Chhattisgarh to central Jharkhand – the two key theatres of naxal violence.
Such a corridor would be crucial to the Maoist strategy of enabling free and safe movement of its military companies from one battlefield to another.
Government sources told HT that Maoists arrested in recent weeks, including a courier, had confirmed the corridor was now in use.
“A corridor is essentially a question of support structures. In recent times, they have strengthened themselves in Odisha’s heavily-forested Naupada district,” a home ministry official said.
This means Maoists have managed to build a reasonable support base among the local population along the Chhattisgarh-Odisha border, right up to Jharkhand’s Gumla district.
HT had in January 2011 reported intelligence inputs about Maoists’ attempts to create the corridor.
In October last year, the IB had sounded another alert on the same.
“The Maoist idea of mobile warfare is that better trained military companies should be able to operate from anywhere,” a senior police officer said.
The closest the rebels have come to this is in and around Jharkhand, in areas under the charge of Dev Kumar Singh, who heads the Bihar Jharkhand North Chhattisgarh Special Area.
This 300-strong team operates in Gaya, Aurangabad Chatra, Gumla, Palamu, Gadwa and Latehar districts.
“Today, this is the strongest naxal belt,” he said.
Maoists eye ‘tri-junction’ in southern states
ZeeNews.com, Ranchi: The CPI (Maoist) is trying to develop a “tri-junction” in southern states in its efforts to spread left wing extremism (LWE), according to an official document.
“…The party (CPI-Maoist) is trying to develop the tri-junction of Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu as a suitable operational base,” according to a six-page letter sent to 13 states, including Jharkhand, by the Ministry of Home Affairs.
Tamil Nadu remains largely unaffected by the Maoists, the letter said, adding that some party (Maoist) activity was found in Karnataka and Kerala.
Maoist activity not necessarily meant violence as it comes at the fifth stage of the Maoist strategy, it said.
Noting that evidence was visible in recent efforts by the CPI (Maoist) to spread the LWE movement in the south, the letter said the Malenadu region of Karnataka witnessed “increased Maoist activity, of late”.
The Malenadu region comprises of Chickmagalur, Shimoga, Udupi, Hassan, Kodagu and Dakshina Kannada districts of Karnataka and Maoist documents state Malenadu “as the strategic midrib of peoples’ war in Karnataka…,” the letter said.
The letter based on the intelligence assessment as on March 8, 2013, said the recent recovery of a party (CPI-Maoist) document in Kerala’s Kannur indicated formation of a “Western Ghats Special Zonal Committee” which would include Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, “but details are still not available”.
Quoting the document, the letter said the Maoists intended the tri-junction as Western Ghats were “selected” by some foreign countries to study “Bio-Technology”.
The tribals would be isolated following the foreign focus on Bio-Technology in the forest reserves such as Kudremukh, Pushpagiri, Nagarahole, Mudumalai and Satyamangalam, it said.
The letter said efforts to revive the Maoist movement in Karnataka were in evidence, particularly in the tri-junction of the three states, seven years after the Karnataka Maoist unit received a setback following a determined police action and a split in the rebel ranks.
According to Kerala state intelligence, the letter said, the banned outfit has recently formed a nine-member State Committee.
The letter is based on an intelligence assessment on the Maoists effort at expansion.
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