Communist Party of India (Maoist)

Communist Party of India
Leader	Muppala Lakshmana Rao under nom de guerre "Ganapati"
Founded	September 21, 2004
Ideology	Communism, Anti-Revisionist Marxism-Leninism, Maoism
Website
People's March

For other uses, see CPIM (disambiguation).

The Communist Party of India (Maoist) is an underground, non-parliamentary Maoist political party in India. It was founded on September 21, 2004, through the merger of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) People's War and the Maoist Communist Centre of India. The merger was announced to the public on October 14 the same year. In the merger a provisional central committee was constituted, with PW leader Ganapati as General Secretary.

The CPI (Maoist) are often referred to as Naxalites in reference to the Naxalbari insurrection by radical Maoists in West Bengal in 1967. The popularly elected UPA government on 22 June 2009 (Monday) banned the CPI (Maoist) under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, calling it a terrorist organisation due to it's violent activities which include burning down schools, killing women and children and destroying public property like roads, telecommunication towers and agricultural vehicles belonging to farmers. Following the ban, the Maoists will now be liable for arrested under the UAPA. After the ban they are barred from holding rallies, public meetings and demonstrations, and their offices if any,will be sealed and bank account frozen. Earlier, the union home minister, Mr P.Chidambaram had asked the West Bengal Chief Minister, Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, to ban the Maoists following the Lalgarh Violence. As of 2009, this group is present in 17 states and responsible for 90% of the left-wing violence in India.

Ideology

It is claimed by the Communist Party of India (Maoist) that it is conducting 'people's war', a strategical line developed by Mao Zedong during the phase of guerrilla warfare of the Communist Party of China. Currently it has presence in remote regions of Jharkhand and Andhra Pradesh as well as presence in Bihar and the tribal-dominated areas in the borderlands of Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, West Bengal and Orissa. The CPI (Maoist) aims to consolidate its power in this area and establish a Compact Revolutionary Zone from which to advance the people's war in other parts of India. The eventual objective is to install a "people’s government" via a "New Democracy Revolution".

Governance Tactics

The organisation has been holding 'Public Court' which at best can be described as kangaroo court in remote villages by handing out arbitrary and many times inhuman justice for local problems. They have also held these kangaroo courts in order to eliminate the local political leaders. These kangaroo courts are usually held in the areas where the police and administration does not have a permanent presence or does not venture into without additional specialized combat forces.

Military Tactics

See also: Naxalite-Maoist insurgency

It retains the tactics of its predecessor Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) People's War of rejecting parliamentary democracy and capturing political power through protracted armed struggle based on guerrilla warfare. This strategy entails building up of bases in rural and remote areas and transforming them first into guerrilla zones and then as "liberated zones", besides the area-wise seizure and encircling cities. They have also been communicating with the Lashkar-e-Taiba in an attempt to coordinate the actions of both organisations in Jharkhand state according to an alleged LET operative Mohd Omar Madni arrested on June 4 2009.

Using cannibalism to strike terror among tribals

In a bid to terrorise villagers last August, a Maoist killed a man and ate his flesh in full view of the public in Malkangiri district of Orissa. Superintendent of Police Satish Kumar Gajbhiye said the incident, which took place at Bandiguda, on August 14, 2007, came to light only on Sunday, during a community policing programme. “The villagers told me that Bhagat, commander of the Paplur Dalam, killed Mukunda Madhi in public view and ate his flesh to terrorise others,” he told PTI on the phone. Mukunda’s hapless family was among the onlookers, none of whom opened his mouth for fear of his life, Mr. Gajbhiye said.

Organization

The military wings of the respective organisations, People's Liberation Guerrilla Army (military wing of MCCI) and People's Guerrilla Army (military wing of PW), were also merged. The name of the unified military organisation is People's Liberation Guerrilla Army. P.V. Ramana, of the Observer Research Foundation in Delhi estimates the Naxilities' current strength at 9,000 -10,000 armed fighters, with access to about 6,500 firearms. Other estimates by Indian intelligence officials and Maoist leaders suggest that the rebel ranks in India have swelled to 20,000, though the number is impossible to verify.

Status

The party was banned on 22 June 2009 by the central home ministry keeping in mind the growing unlawful activities by the group The party is regarded by some as a "left-wing extremist entity" and a terrorist outfit and several of their members have been arrested by the Indian Government under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA). The group is officially banned by the State Governments of Orissa, Chattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh, among others. The party has protested these bans. They are regarded as a serious security threat and the Indian government is taking countermeasures, pulling the affected states together to coordinate their response. It says it will combine improved policing with socio-economic measures to defuse grievances that fuel the Maoist cause.[6] In many states, private armies and vigilante groups, often government-sponsored, have sprung up to counter the Maoists. It is alleged by the maoists that these private armies have also forcibly recruited villagers against the Maoists.[7] Special insurance provisions have been made by the Indian government for central security forces stationed in regions affected by the militant Maoists.[8] Template:Terrorist organisations active in India

Recent Violent activities conducted

• October 8, 2009 : About 150 Maoist ambushed a Police petrol and killed 17 Policemen in Gadchiroli,Maharashtra

• October 6, 2009 : Police inspector Francis Induwar was beheaded by Maoists in Jharkhand.. The action has been compared to the tactics of the Islamist Taliban of Pakistan-Afghanistan[9][10]

• April 13, 2009: 10 paramilitary troops are killed in eastern Orissa.

• February 23, 2009: Maoists kill a contractor, sets fire in police post at Govindpalli of Malkangiri.

• July 16, 2008: A landmine hit a police van in Malkangiri district, killing 21 policemen.

• June 29, 2008: CPI forces attacked a boat on the Chitrakonda reservoir in Orissa carrying members of an anti-Naxalite police force. The boat sunk, killing 33 policemen, while 28 survived.

• In November 2007 reports emerged that the anti-SEZ movement in Nandigram in West Bengal had been infiltrated by Naxalites since February; the reports quoted unnamed intelligence sources. Recently, police found weapons belonging to Maoists near Nandigram.

• On March 15, 2007 an attack happened in the rebel stronghold area of Dantewada, in Chhattisgarh state. Fifty-four persons, including 15 personnel of the Chhattishgarh Armed Force, were killed in an offensive by 300 to 350 CPI (Maoist) cadres on a police base camp in the Bastar region in the early hours of Thursday. The remaining victims were tribal youths of Salwa Judum, designated as Special Police Officers (SPOs) and roped in to combat the Maoists. Eleven person were injured. The attack, which lasted nearly two-and-a-half hours, was spearheaded by the "State Military Commission (Maoist)", consisting of about 100 armed naxalites.

• On March 6, 2007 the CPI (Maoist) reportedly claimed responsibility for the Mahato assassination, but JMM members of the Jharkhand state cabinet, including the Chief Minister, subsequently announced that a state police investigation is under way into the authenticity of this claim. Police reportedly believe that political rivals of Mahato, including organized criminal groups, may have been behind the assassination.

• On March 5, 2007 Maoist shot dead a local Congress leader (Prakash, a member of the local Mandal Praja Parishad (MPP)) in Andhra Pradesh while he was inspecting a road construction project in Mahabubnagar district.

• On March 4, 2007 Maoist shot dead a member of the parliament (Sunil Mahato) of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) party from Jharkhand state.

• On December 2, 2006 the BBC reported that at least 14 Indian policemen had been killed by Maoists in a landmine ambush near the town of Bokaro, 80 miles from Ranchi, the capital of the State of Jharkhand.

• On October 18, 2006 women belonging to the Maoist guerrilla forces blasted four government buildings in the Bastar region of Chhattisgarh. On the day before, over a dozen armed cadres of the group, with support from male colleagues, blocked traffic on the Antagarh-Koylibera Road in the Kanker district, near the city of Raipur. They also detonated explosives inside four buildings, including two schools, in Kanker[11]. This incident occurred two days after a major leader of the party's operations in Orissa and Andhra Pradesh, Kone Kedandam, surrendered to authorities in the town of Srikakulam.

• On July 16, 2006 the Maoists attacked a relief camp in the Dantewada district where several villagers were kidnapped. The death toll was 29.

• On February 28, 2006 the Maoists attacked several anti-Maoist protesters in Erraboru village in Chhattisgarh using landmines, killing 25 people.

• On 13 November 2005 CPI (Maoist) fighters stunned authorities by attacking Jehanabad in Bihar, freeing 250 captured comrades and taking twenty imprisoned right wing paramilitaries captive, executing their leader. They also detonated several bombs in the town. A prison guard was also reported killed.

• In August 2005 Maoists kidnapped from the Dantewada district of the state of Chhattisgarh.This fiollows violent incidents in 2004 in the same region when 50 policemen and about 300 villagers were killed in the Dantewada district and over 50,000 villagers were staying in relief camps out of fear from Maoists.

• In February 2005 the CPI (Maoist) killed 7 policemen, a civilian and injured many more during a mass attack on a school building in Venkatammanahalli village, Pavgada, Tumkur, Karnataka. On August 17 2005, the government of Andhra Pradesh outlawed the Communist Party of India (Maoist) and various mass organizations close to it, and began to arrest suspected members and sympathizers days afterwards. The arrested included former emissaries at the peace talks of 2004.

• A Frontline Cover Story calls the Bhamragad Taluka where the Madia Gond Adivasis live, the heart of the naxalite-affected region in Maharashtra.

Opposition to the Maoist

In 2005, an anti-Maoist village defense movement was born, calling itself the Salwa Judum, or Peace Mission. The group has coaxed or hounded thousands of people out of their forest hamlets and into the squalid tent camps, where suspected Maoist sympathizers are detained. The camps are guarded by police officers, paramilitary forces and squads of local armed youths empowered with the title "special police officer." The Delhi-based Asian Center for Human Rights, in a report in March 2006, found children in the ranks of the Salwa Judum. The center also accuses the Maoists of recruiting child soldiers. It calls the conflict "the most serious challenge to human rights advocacy in India."

Maoist/Naxal attacks in India: A bloody timeline

Following is the chronology of major naxal attacks in the country in the last five years:

Oct 8, 2009 : Seventeen policemen killed in an ambush by Maoists at Laheri police station in Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra.

Sep 30: Naxalites set ablaze Gram Panchayat offices at Korchi and Belgaon in Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra.

Sep 26: Naxals kill BJP MP from Balaghat Baliram Kashyap's sons at Pairaguda village in Jagdalpur (Chhattisgarh).

Sep 4: Naxals kill four villagers in a forest in Aaded village in Chhattisgarh's Bijapur district.

Jul 31: Two persons, including a special police officer (SPO), killed by Naxals in Bijapur district.

July 27: Six people killed when Naxals trigger a landmine blast at Dantewada district in Chhattisgarh.

July 23: A 40-year-old tribal killed by Naxalites at Ettapalli taluka in Gadchiroli district.

July 18: Naxalites kill a villager in Bastar and in a separate incident torch a vehicle engaged in road construction work in Bijapur district of Chhattisgarh.

June 23, 2009: A group of motorcycle-borne armed Naxal rebels open fire on Lakhisarai district court premises in Bihar and free four of their comrades including the self-style Zonal Commander of Ranchi.

June 16, 2009: Maoists kill 11 police officers in a landmine attack followed by armed assault. In a separate attack, four policemen killed and two others seriously injured when Maoists ambush them at Beherakhand in Palamau district.

June 13: Naxals launch two landmine and bomb attacks in a small town close to Bokaro, killing 10 policemen and injuring several others.

June 10: Nine policemen including CRPF troops and officers ambushed by Maoists during a routine patrol in Saranda jungles in Jharkhand.

May 22: Maoists kill 16 policemen in the jungles of Gadchiroli district in Maharashtra.

April 22: Maoists hijack a train with at least 300 people on board in Jharkhand and force it to Latehar district before fleeing.

April 13: 10 paramilitary troops killed in eastern Orissa when Maoists attack a bauxite mine in Koraput district.

July 16, 2008: 21 policemen killed when a landmine blast hits a police van in Malkangiri district of Orissa.

June 29: Maoists attack a boat on the Balimela reservoir in Orissa carrying four anti-Naxalite police officials and 60 Greyhound commandos, killing 38 troops.

Feb 16, 2008 : A group of 50 rebels including women cadre raid a police training school, a police station and an armoury in Orissa killing 12 policemen and leaving four wounded.

Sept 7, 2007: Former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Janardhan Reddy and his wife N Rajyalakshmi, escape unhurt while three Congress workers killed in a Maoist attack in Nellore district in Andhra Pradesh.

July 10: Naxalites attack a police team with light machine guns and mortar bombs in a dense forest area of Chhattisgarh, killing at least 24 security personnel.

July 1: Nine persons, including five policemen, killed and as many wounded as CPI-Maoist rebels carry out simultaneous attacks on a police station and an outpost in Sasaram in Bihar's Rohtas district and flee with arms and ammunition.

Apr 28: Five security personnel killed in a landmine blast triggered by Maoist rebels in Michgaon village of Kanker district, about 175 km south of Raipur in Chhattisgarh.

Mar 16: Maoists attack a police post in remote jungles of Rani Bodli in Chattisgarh with guns, hand grenades and gasoline bombs, killing at least 49 people.

March 5: Naxalites shot dead Jharkhand Mukti Morcha's Lok Sabha MP Sunil Kumar Mahato. Two of his bodyguards and a party colleague also killed in the attack when they were witnessing a football match at a village in Jamshedpur in Jharkhand.

July 17, 2007: At least 25 people killed and 80 injured, 32 of them seriously, while about 250 people went missing following an attack by some 800 armed Naxalites in Dantewada district of Chattisgarh.

Feb 9, 2006: Eight Central Industrial Security Force personnel killed and eight others injured when Naxalites raid a godown of the National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC) and take away explosives from a village near Bailadila in Jagdalpur in Chattisgarh.

November 13, 2005: Hundreds of activists of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist) attack the police lines in south Bihar's Jehanabad district.

Mar 1: Naxalites kill eight villagers and blow up a forest rest house, injuring a CRPF constable in Andhra Pradesh.

International connections

The CPI (Maoist) maintains dialogue with the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) who control most of Nepal in the Coordination Committee of Maoist Parties and Organizations of South Asia (CCOMPOSA) according to several intelligence sources and think tanks. These links are however denied by the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist)