Madhya Pradesh Timeline 2011

Date

Incidents

January 30

A woman CPI-Maoist ‘commander’, identified as Jhinia Pusam (32), was arrested from Lanji area in Balaghat District, close to the Chhattisgarh border.

February 3

Two live hand-grenades, 23 used cartridges, fatigues and other materials used to trigger explosions along with three bags of Naxal (LWE) literature were seized in the Lanji tehsil in Balaghat District, Police said. The Naxals had buried the materials in some places at the villages of Chouriya, Pithkona, Chilkona and Bhaya in Lanji tehsil. Lanji is close to Rajnandgaon District of Chhattisgarh.

February 24

300 personnel of the CoBRA, a special anti-Naxal force, have been deployed in Balaghat District to combat the growing presence of the CPI-Maoist cadres.

Four leaders of the CPI-Maoist were arrested by Madhya Pradesh Police from an arms dump in the State capital Bhopal. The arrested leaders have been identified as Divakar Patil, Sunitha, Pentaiah and Ramesh. "A Police Officer from Guntur was summoned to confirm the identities of the rebel leaders," a source said. While Divakar is a native of Bapatla town, the other three were residents of Ponnur and Amruthalur towns in Guntur District in Andhra Pradesh. They had joined the Naxal (LWE) movement a decade ago and worked in Bollapalli, Veldurthy and Pullalacheruvu dalams for more than six years. "They shifted their base to MP following the aggressive Police hunt in the Nallamala region in the last four years," sources said. The antecedents of the arrested Maoists are yet to be known, police believe they might have been working in coordination with the armed dalams in the forests. "They initially worked as weapon carriers in Guntur District and subsequently promoted," a Police official said.

The Police recovered over one quintal of highly inflammable explosives and five kilogram gun-powder from the Muchurda Valley forest in the Naxal -infested Balaghat District.

Security was tightened in Balaghat District following intelligence inputs that around 60-80 cadres of the CPI-Maoist have sneaked in from Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh. "Some Naxal movement has been reported in the district and we have intensified night vigil and patrolling in the forested area," IG of Police for Naxal-affected Districts, C B Muniraju said.

Explosives used in claymore mine and supplementary material that weighed 70 kilograms were recovered by the Police from near the Tanda River in Balaghat District, close to Chhattisgarh border. "Based on a tip-off, we recovered seven steel plates, fuses, switches, wires, flashes, detonators and explosives used in claymore mine from village Dhiri close to Tanda river yesterday," IGP C B Muniraju said. The Police are yet to ascertain the links with the CPI-Maoist.

Two CPI-Maoist cadres were arrested by the Madhya Pradesh Police. Singrauli District SP, Irshad Wali said, "The members belonged to the Renga Yadav dalam. One of them had killed Renga in June and was trying to regroup the dalam." The arrested duo was mainly running extortion rackets in Singrauli and bordering Chhattisgarh, the Police claimed. "We also seized some weapons, along with some live ammunition from them," said the SP.

State Home Minister Uma Shankar Gupta informed the State legislative assembly that the CPI-Maoist has its presence in eight Districts of Madhya Pradesh as of now.

Union Minister for Rural Development Jairam Ramesh was forced to cancel his visit to Madhya Pradesh in the wake of inputs of CPI-Maoist's threat. Ramesh was to have gone to Balaghat on December 9-evening and reached the airport to take a BSF plane to Nagpur en route to his destination.

Five Naxals, including a couple, were sentenced to life imprisonment by a local court for running an illegal manufacturing unit on the fringe of Bhopal city, apparently to supply firearms to their cadres.

Amid civil authorities finding it difficult to carryout development initiatives in the LWE affected District of Balaghat, State Police says its own wing could be pressed into service for taking up activities such as construction of roads in the disturbed tribal areas. "Madhya Pradesh already has a separate wing of 7th battalion, known as Pioneer, which is capable to handle such development initiatives. If the Government entrusts the task to us, this agency can be expanded and deployed for taking up works in the Naxalite affected areas of Balaghat district", DGP S K Raut said.