Security forces gaining ground in Maoist bastions

With six Maoists, including two women, killed in an encounter with the elite Greyhound commandos of the Telangana Police in Bhadradri Kothagudem district adjoining Chhattisgarh on September 5, the Maoists have suffered a serious setback. The incessant pressure on the Maoists by the security forces in Chhattisgarh had forced them to shift to Telangana, where the Greyhounds took them on.

On September 3, nine Maoists were killed in a joint operation conducted by the Central Reserve Police Force’s 111th Battalion, Bastar Fighters and the District Reserve Guards (DRG) in the forests adjoining the Dantewada-Bijapur district border. Six of the killed Maoists were women. Macherla Esobu, a top Maoist carrying a bounty of Rs 25 lakh on his head, was also among the killed. With this success of the security forces, the number of Maoists killed this year in India has risen to around 170 as against 46 in 2021, 30 in 2022 and 29 last year.

The penetration by the security forces into the hitherto untrodden territory of Abujhmad last year has unnerved the Maoists. A series of setbacks in various encounters with the security personnel has depleted their strength and demoralised their cadre. This fear of getting killed has forced many of them to surrender at police stations or in Central Armed Police Forces camps.

As many as 22 Maoists have been killed this year in Chhattisgarh alone. These back-to-back operations are yielding satisfactory results, evident from the fact that around 670 Maoists were arrested this year, while 656 more surrendered in the Bastar division. As many as 5,816 Maoists surrendered between 2014 and 2022, of which 2,855 surrendered in 2022 alone. At present, only 38 districts are in the grip of the Maoist menace as against 96 in 2010.

Six of the eight Maoists killed in an encounter with a combined force of the DRG, Special Task Force (STF), Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) and the Border Security Force (BSF) in the forests adjoining Farasbeda and Kotmeta villages in Narayanpur district, Chhattisgarh, on June 15, carried a reward of Rs 8 lakh each.

Speaking after a review meeting in Raipur on August 24, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said 14 top Maoists had been killed this year. He also assured that India would be free of the Maoist menace by March 2026.

A recent trend seen after these encounters is that the Maoists are no longer carrying back their dead comrades or their weapons with them. In the past, they would carry their dead with them and give them a traditional cremation. Not so now. With the security forces in hot pursuit, they fear that their escape will be hampered. In the encounters on September 3 and 5, a large haul of arms and ammunition was recovered.

While the security forces’ recent success has brought them gallantry medals, rewards and commendations, it has sent tremors among the Maoist leaders who have fought the establishment for years. With many of their leaders dead, the morale among the rank and file is at its lowest. The security forces have set up over 200 camps in the last bastion of their refuge in Abujhmad, a 4,000-sq km forest stretch. This has almost strangled the Maoist movement.

As face-to-face confrontations with the security forces could lead to more killings among the Maoists, they will resort to tactics that would inflict maximum harm and casualties on the security forces with least damage to themselves.

Nothing could be safer for the Maoists than to plant improvised explosive devices (IEDs), trigger these from a distance and then escape into the adjoining forests. Usually, these IEDs are planted in advance when the roads are being laid. Later, when Maoists plan to attack the forces, they trigger it through batteries. Unfortunately, since these IEDs are planted deep in the soil, it becomes difficult to detect them with explosive detectors.

On June 23 this year, the CRPF lost two of its gallant Cobra commandos when a truck carrying rations for its personnel in Tekulagudem from its base at the Silger camp came under an IED attack. The IED triggered by Maoists hurled the truck high in the air, killing the two commandos.

The Electronics Corporation of India Limited, Department of Atomic Energy and the Defence Research and Development Organisation have recently developed different explosive detectors that may help avoid such attacks in future.

In a desperate attempt to regain lost ground, the Maoists may attack the security forces. With the forces closing in on Maoist leader Madvi Hidma, who has been instrumental in a series of attacks on them, he would desperately be looking for opportunities to carry out attacks. Carrying a reward of Rs 25 lakh, Hidma, a native of Puvarti village in Sukma district, is the most wanted Maoist in the region. A forward base set up in Tekulagudem, just a few km from Puvarti, has him on the run. It is believed that his arrest or killing in an encounter will break the backbone of Maoists in the area.

As the security forces gain a foothold in every bastion of the Maoists, the alertness among the personnel may wane. The stringent standard operating procedures may, at times, be thrown to the winds, and laxity may set in. Such a scenario would prove disastrous. The security forces need to maintain the momentum, based on hard intelligence, which, of late, has been pouring in steadily. They should remain on the offensive to avert casualties. The day may not be far when India will be rid of the menace of Maoists.