Dual Power in a Guerrilla Zone: Two Reigns of Political Violence in Bastar

by Bernard D’Mello and Gautam Navlakha

The ambush on May 25 by Maoist guerrillas in the Darba Ghati valley (in the Sukma area of the Bastar region in southern Chhattisgarh), 345 kms south of the state capital of Raipur, of a convoy of provincial Congress Party leaders has shocked the Indian state apparatus. The Z-plus and other categories of armed security personnel — entitlements of the ‘lords’ of India’s political establishment — were no match for the guerrillas. The main targets of the attack were Mahendra Karma, founder of the state-promoted, financed and armed private vigilante force, Salwa Judum (SJ), and Nand Kumar Patel, the chief of the Congress Party in the province and a former home minister of the state.

A press statement issued by Dandakaranya Special Zonal Committee of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) (CPI [Maoist]) on May 26 states that the “goal of this attack was mainly to eliminate Mahendra Karma and some other reactionary Congress top leaders”. It pointedly reminds Chhattisgarh’s state government leaders and state police officials “who are hell-bent on crushing the revolutionary movement of Dandakaranya” that they suffer from a “big illusion that they are unbeatable”. Mahendra Karma too falsely believed “that Z-plus Security and bullet proof vehicles would save him forever”. The statement also clarifies that in Chhattisgarh “there are no differences between [the] ruling BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party] and opposition Congress in terms of policies of suppressing the revolutionary movement. Only due to public pressure, as well as to gain electoral benefits, some of the local leaders of the Congress at times came [out] in condemnation of incidents like [the] Sarkeguda and Edsametta massacres”.

The convoy was returning from a “Parivartan Yatra” (“March for Change”) rally in Sukma and the Maoists knew not only that Karma and Patel were in the convoy, but even the route that it was to take. The assassinations were thus meticulously planned and executed, though they took a two-hour long gun battle with the state forces to accomplish, a clash in which many who merely serve or protect (the latter, armed personnel) the oppressors, and do so because they have little choice, were either killed or injured. The Maoist guerrillas reportedly even provided first aid to some of these persons who suffered injuries.

India: Chhattisgarh police face another charge of custodial death

Deccan Herald, Wednesday 22 February 2012

Raipur, Feb 20, 2012 (IANS)

Police deny allegation, open to inquiry

A 25-year-old man who died in police custody here was a victim of excessive torture, his father alleged on Monday and sought an independent probe.

Chhattisgarh Police, however, denied the charge and said they were open to magisterial inquiry.

Bhagwat Daharia, father of Santosh Daharia, claimed his son was arrested on February 14 on the charge of kidnapping a minor girl, and was excessively tortured at Kharora police station, some 30 kilometre from here. As a result, his son died, the villager said.

According to him, the police did not inform Santosh’s relatives about his death. Kharora police station personnel, however, denied that the young man was tortured.

Santosh, a police official said, was sent to the state’s Central Jail, and then admitted to Raipur’s Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar Government Hospital on Saturday as he complained of “some health problem” and was vomiting.

“He was not tortured. The charges against us are baseless. We are open to magisterial inquiry,” Kharora police station chief P K Pathak said. But Pathak did not explain why he did now allow relatives to meet Santosh when he was in custody at Kharora police station.

‘Not allowed to meet’

Bhagwat alleged that he and his relatives were repeatedly disallowed by policemen at Kharora police station and also at the Raipur Central Jail to meet or see Santosh even after they learnt of his death.

I H Khan, additional superintendent of police (Raipur rural), said, “We are collecting details of what exactly happened to the accused. We are surely looking into complaints of the relatives very seriously.”

The custodial deaths in Chhattisgarh, mainly in forested areas of Maoist hotbed, are common as are allegations that police pick up youths from villages, brand them as Maoists and torture them routinely.

India: Maoists blow up new police station in Chhattisgarh

Dantewada: Naxals destroy newly-built police station

Press Trust of India

Raipur: Naxals destroyed a newly constructed police station using explosives in Chhattisgarh’s Dantewada district, police said on Wednesday.

Following the incident which took place on Monday night, the state government transferred Dantewada SP Ankit Garg and posted him at police headquarters to Raipur, official sources said.

A group of 50 Naxals assembled at the police station near Geedam area and asked the labourers present there to leave. They blasted the building using huge amount of explosives, police said, adding there were no reports of any casualty.

The police station, which was completely destroyed, was recently constructed at a cost of Rs 30 lakh, but it didn’t have adequate security, they said.

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Raipur, Dec 27 (IANS)

About 50 armed Maoists blew up a two-storeyed police station under-construction  in Chhattisgarh’s restive Bastar region Tuesday, police said.

“Maoists stormed into the building at Geedam town, hardly 10 km from Dantewada town and set high-powered explosives and blew it up,” Dantewada Superintendent of Police Ankit Garg told IANS over the phone.

The two-storeyed structure was almost complete but was not handed over to the police. “It was a massive blast and the building was mostly blown up,” Garg said. Police have launched a massive search operation to apprehend the  rebels but no arrest has been made, he added.

The building was barely one km away from the Geedam police station but policemen posted at the old building had not reached the demolished site even after three hours of the blast.