News from the People’s War in India
Featured image: A sabotaged road and a banner put up in Narayanpur district of Chhattisgarh. Source: Amar Ujala
According to the old State authorities the CPI(Maoist) is again carrying out activities in the state of Karnataka. On the 19th of March the media reported that the old State authorities had made an investigation into “suspicious movement” of a group of people at the Kodagu-Dakshina Kannada border and said they were Maoists, who had been appealing to the masses to support them. Later, on Saturday the 23rd, Maoists had allegedly visited a village in Kumara Parvata hills near Kukke Subramanya in Karnataka. The old State authorities have expressed their concerns for the development as the Lok Sabha (House of the People, lower house of the Indian parliament) elections are coming up, and they fear the election boycott campaign of the Maoists could gain hold in new areas. In the media it has also been highlighted that this area could provide strategically valuable routes to the neighboring regions for the guerrillas. A repressive operation of paramilitaries and police has been launched in the area.
On the 8th of March, a police informant was taken captive and killed in Bijapur district of Chhattisgarh. In addition, in a separate action, on the 11th of March a clash took place between “security forces” and Maoists in in a forest area between Purangel village and Peediya village in the Bijapur district. During search operations after the clash a soldier of the Bastar fighters was injured in his legs after he stepped into an IED.
On the 23rd of March two soldiers of the Bastar Fighters sustained severe injuries by an IED explosion in the Pidiya forest on the border of the Dantewada-Bijapur districts in Chhattisgarh. The soldiers were on their way to support paramilitaries who were engaged in a fierce exchange of gunfire with the guerrillas.
On the night of the 26th of March Maoists sabotaged roads in the Narayanpur district of Chhattisgarh and put up banners. IEDs were also placed on the road. Traffic was disturbed for hours due to the action. The banners denounced violence against tribal women and called women to fight for their rights.
In Telangana, the CPI(Maoist) has called for a bandh (a general strike) to protest a fake encounter in which four were tortured and killed by the police. On the 25th of March it was reported that the police supported by paramilitaries was on high alert because of the bandh along the border of Telangana, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra, guarding banks of the Godavari river and inspecting vehicles in many areas.
It is also reported that guerrillas have widely seized and used small solar panels put up some years ago in villages, security outposts and relief camps of paramilitaries by the Chhattisgarh State Renewable Energy Development Agency (CREDA) as part of a “shift towards renewable energy”, part of the low-intensity counter-insurgency warfare, the “assistance” by the reactionary armed forces to the masses such as here by giving electricity. These solar panels are lightweight and fit in a backpack, and can be used to charge radios, phones and other devices.
