SOUTH ASIA INTELLIGENCE REVIEW
Weekly Assessments & Briefings
Volume 11, No. 46, May 20, 2013

INDIA

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Anti-Maoist Operations: Vital Intelligence
Fakir Mohan Pradhan
Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management

Inflicting significant losses on the Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist), the Greyhounds commando Force of the Andhra Pradesh Police (AP), on April 16, 2013, shot dead at least nine Maoists in a fierce encounter at Puvarti village in the Sukma District of Chhattisgarh, close to the Inter-State border with Andhra Pradesh. Acting on specific information, the Greyhounds personnel trekked nearly 35 kilometres under the cover of darkness and crossed over to the Chhattisgarh side of the border, where the encounter took place early in the morning. Security Forces (SFs) recovered nine bodies, besides four SLRs, one carbine, two .303 rifles, two INSAS rifles, one pistol, a tapancha (country made pistol) and a SBBL gun from the encounter site. Of the nine bodies recovered, seven were later identified as members of the Khammam-Karimnagar-Warangal (KKW) Divisional Committee of the CPI-Maoist, including the KKW general secretary Marri Ravi alias Sudhakar alias Kanakala Raji Reddy. One Greyhounds commando was killed by the Maoists when he lost his way in the jungle while returning to the base camp after the encounter, when he was captured by the Maoists. He had to trek through the jungle because the Border Security Force (BSF) helicopter that was deployed to evacuate the Greyhounds personnel was hit by hostile fire from the Maoists during its last (sixth) trip and the pilot took off in a hurry, leaving five commandos behind. While four could manage to reach the base camp, one lost his way.

Though the encounter took place in the Sukma District of Chhattisgarh, it was planned and executed by the AP Greyhounds and the outcome of the operation had greater significance for the situation in AP. Over the years, the Maoists have suffered a major setback in AP and had been forced to shift base to southern Chhattisgarh. Maoist activities had remained largely confined to AP Districts bordering Chhattisgarh and Odisha. Chhattisgarh had, consequently, become a springboard for Maoist activities in AP, particularly in the Khammam, Karimnagar and Warangal Districts of the Telangana region, the erstwhile heartland of the Maoist movement.

The April 16 encounter was significant as it virtually wiped out the KKW Divisional Committee which had been entrusted with the task of preparing the base for the Maoists to make a comeback in AP. A senior AP Police officer observed, “With the KKW committee being eliminated now, it will take at least five years for the Maoists to build the cadre again.” Even senior Maoist leader and Central Committee member, Sudershan reportedly conceded, “Our hard work for two to three years to set up a party infrastructure in the region has been routed (sic).”

The Sukma encounter has prompted media reports to speculate that the encounter was possible because of a ‘major’ tactical shift in the attitude of the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA). Earlier, the MHA is said to have discouraged ‘hot pursuit’ of Maoists across State borders. But ‘now’ the MHA covertly supports such ‘hot pursuit’. This is far from the reality, State Police Forces have repeatedly operated in the neighbouring States in the past, at least on occasion with unfortunate consequences. It is useful to recall that, in 2008, the Chitrakonda Reservoir ambush in Odisha resulted in the killing of 36 Greyhounds personnel; and the 2011 Nuapada ambush in Odisha resulted in the killing of nine Chhattisgarh Police personnel. Numerous successful operations by the Greyhounds inside Chhattisgarh and Odisha have also been recorded in the past. The Sukma incident reflects an instance of the greater efficiency of the Greyhounds and the Special Intelligence Branch (SIB) of the AP Police. The SIB provided the specific intelligence that underpinned the Greyhounds’ success. 

The Sukma encounter is only the latest of the major reverses inflicted on the Maoists in various theatres, thus far, in 2013. The most significant of these were:

April 12: Four CPI-Maoist cadres, a Policeman and two villagers were killed in an encounter between Maoists and Commandos of an anti-Naxal unit, C-60, in a forest of Dhanora in Gadchiroli District of Maharashtra.

April 4: Seven Maoist cadres were killed in an encounter with Police in Bhamragad Division of Gadchiroli District, Maharashtra.

March 27-28: Ten Maoists, including some senior cadres, were killed in a gunfight with Tritiya Prastuti Committee (TPC), a splinter group of the CPI-Maoist, near Lakramanda village in Chatra District of Jharkhand. The slain Maoists included Lalesh Yadav alias Prashant, ‘secretary’ of the Bihar Jharkhand North Chhattisgarh Special Area Committee (BJNCSAC); Jaikumar Yadav, ‘platoon commander’; Dharmendra Yadav alias Biru, ‘sub-zonal commander’ for Chatra Palamu; and Prafulla Yadav, ‘sub-zonal commander’ of the Koleswari area. TPC is said to receive implicit support from the Jharkhand Police.

January 20: Six Maoists, including some senior cadres, were killed by SFs during an encounter near Jimulgatta, in Aheri tehsil (revenue unit) of Gadchiroli District. The deceased Maoists included the secretary of the Aheri Area Committee of the CPI-Maoist, Shankar alias Munneshwar Jaktu Lakada; Aheri dalam (armed squad) commander, Vinod alias Chandrayya Kodape; and deputy commander of the Aheri dalam, Mohan Kowase.

Common to these major operational successes against the Maoists is the fact that the rebels were taken by complete surprise, a significant departure from the experience of the past in these areas. In past operations, even where significant successes were claimed by the SFs, the Maoists tended to inflict substantial losses on the SFs, and few bodies of Maoist cadres were recovered, since the rebels withdrew in some order, extracting their dead and wounded as they retreated. In the more recent instances, however, SF casualties have been relatively low and the bodies of the Maoist dead have been recovered by the SFs.

This is testimony to the second common feature of these operations: each was based on specific and accurate intelligence. The Andhra Police SIB is known for its intelligence gathering capacity. However, the precise intelligence gathered by Gadchiroli Police is a remarkable improvement. It appears that the Police in Gadchiroli have greatly benefitted from the surrender of Shekhar, the South Gadchiroli Divisional Secretary and member of Western Military Command of the CPI-Maoist. Shekhar alias Bandarapa Mallaiah alias Chandranna and his wife Vijaya Akka had surrendered before the AP Police in November 2012. The CPI-Maoist Dandakarnya Western Regional Committee had issued a Press note “condemning the treachery of Shekhar”. Shekhar had been a party cadre for more than 20 years. According to Police sources, Shekhar played an important role in giving “hot inputs” to the Police, leading up to the January 20 encounter. The CPI-Maoist Press note alleged that Shekhar was taking the Police to some important locations and had given the Police important documents.

Just when the Maoists’ response to these setbacks looked somewhat muted, especially in the Dandakaranya area (dense forests in Central India comprised mainly of the Bastar Division of Chhattisgarh and parts of Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra) where they still possess considerable strength, the Maoists stepped up violence in the Bastar Division of Chhattisgarh. Some of the incidents reflecting this escalation included: 

May 12: Maoists attacked the Doordarshan (DD) Transmission Centre at Marenga village under Parpa Police Station in Bastar District of Chhattisgarh, killing three personnel of the Chhattisgarh Armed Force (CAF) and injuring another. In a second attack on the same day, Maoists opened fire at the camp of the 9th and 13th battalion of CAF at Temelwada village under Dornapal region of Sukma District, killing one CAF trooper.

May 8: The Maoists attacked a CAF party and killed one trooper and injured another three in the jungles under the Kistaram Police Station of Sukma District. The CAF party was on a combing operation.

April 27: A group of around 50 Maoists attacked a joint party of the Police and Border Security Force (BSF) in the jungles in the Tadoti Police Station area of Kanker District and killed two Policemen and injured another two. The SFs were on a routine combing operation. The incident surprised SF officials, as the Maoists had managed to mobilize two platoons for their counter-attack in an area where it was believed they were no longer ‘organized’, as a result of the deployment of six battalions of the BSF. 

Despite these incidents, Maoist responses appeared diminished, as compared to the past. A review of major incidents in 2013 prior to the May 12 DD Centre attack in Bastar, indicates that, out of the 10 major incidents, only three had been initiated by the Maoists. Of the remaining seven, two were the result of Maoists targeting civilians, and five were the result of offensive operations initiated by the SFs.  Moreover, the Maoist ‘counter-attacks’ were executed in Jharkhand (two) and Bihar (one), and not in the crucial Dandakaranya area. Maoist operations have diminished in frequency, intensity and effectiveness in Maharashtra, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh.

The improvements in SF operations are, however, far from comprehensive, and the ‘botched operation’ remains an unfortunate fact, as was most recently demonstrated by the encounter between SFs and Maoists in Bijapur District’s Edesmeta Forest in the night of May 17, 2013, where nine persons – seven civilians, one SF trooper and one Maoist – were killed. The incident took place as six teams of SFs, which included State Police, CRPF and Commando Battalion for Resolute Action (CoBRA) personnel, moved towards Pidiya, a Maoist stronghold, from six different directions – Sarkeguda, Jagargunda, Basaguda, Cherpal, Kirandul and Ganglur. When the Ganglur team came under heavy fire, the SFs retaliated. The villagers are claimed to have been used by the Maoists as human shields. Significantly, on June 28-29, 2011, in a similar incident in the same area [Sarkeguda] at least 17 ‘Maoists’ had been claimed to have been killed. However, there were widespread allegations that most of those killed were innocent villagers.

Meanwhile, media reports indicate that the CPI-Maoist has established its own elite training 'institute', Buniyadi Communist Training School (BCTS), in the Dandakaranya forests, to create a pool of cadres who can handle tasks related to the Central Committee. The BCTS trains about 30 to 35 recruits in each batch of six month duration, and is believed to have trained four batches since 2009. The fifth batch is reportedly undergoing training in the Dharba area. The course covers basic military skills and knowledge of Hindi, social studies, mathematics and science. Dandakaranya Special Zonal Committee (DKSZC) member K. Ramachandra Reddy alias Raju is in charge of the school and key Maoist leaders, including Takalapalli Vasudeva Rao alias Ashanna, train Maoist cadres, aged between 14 and 21 years, in military intelligence and action team missions, such as assassination of legislators and senior Police officers. BCTS operates in Dandakaranya only, with the actual venue changing with every batch. A surrendered courier for the CPI-Maoist Central Committee reportedly provided information regarding this training facility to the Chhattisgarh Police.

The setbacks that the SFs have recently inflicted on the Maoists demonstrate the clear superiority of intelligence-led operations over random combing operations or ‘area domination’ exercises. While the Maoist counter-attacks are testimony to very significant residual capacities for violence, it is clear that the losses the rebels have suffered over the past two years have forced them into a tactical retreat. This is an opportunity for state agencies to press their advantage and dismantle the leadership structures of the Maoists in their remaining ‘heartland’ areas.

INDIA

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Assam: Tinsukia: Troubled Again?
Giriraj Bhattacharjee
Research Assistant, Institute for Conflict Management

On April 19, 2013, an Inspector of a commando unit of the Assam Police, identified as Lohit Sonowal, two militants of the ‘Independent’ faction of the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA-I), and one civilian, were killed in an encounter at Kordoiguri village in Tinsukia District. The militants killed in the encounter were identified as Raktajeet Hazarika and Ananta Moran. An official disclosed that residents of the village where the incident occurred identified the civilian as Pona Moran, who reportedly died in the crossfire. This is the first major incident (involving three or more killing) in the State in the current year.

Earlier, on May 9, 2012, four Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) cadres were killed and a Police constable was injured, in an encounter with the Police in Bangaon village near Deopan under the Sadiya Subdivision of Tinsukia District. The slain Maoists were identified as Siddhartha Buragohain, Rajeev Gogoi alias Medang, Arup Chetia alias Iyan and Kamala Gogoi. Siddhartha Buragohain was the 'second-in-command' of the armed wing of the CPI-Maoist in the State.

Tinsukia District has already registered five fatalities in two incidents in 2013. The earlier incident occurred on January 20, 2013, when Security Forces (SFs) killed a militant, identified as Lalit Moran, belonging to the ULFA-I, in an encounter in the Kakojan Reserve Forest under Digboi Police Station. There were nine fatalities in the District in 2012, and seven in 2011. According to the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), the District has witnessed 16 major incidents since 2000, resulting in 139 fatalities. Of these, 14 incidents involved ULFA. The highest fatalities were recorded in 2007, when 45 persons were killed in four major incidents, mostly involving settlers from other Indian States. In the worst such incident, ULFA militants massacred 34 ‘outsiders’ on January 5, 2007.

Fatalities had registered declining trends over recent years, as the major outfit operating in the District, ULFA, had witnessed several reverses.

On June 24, 2008, two companies [Alpha and Charlie] of ULFA’s ‘28th battalion’, the most potent strike group of the outfit, announced a unilateral ceasefire with the Government. The ‘battalion’ operated in Tinsukia, Dibrugarh, and Sivasagar Districts of Assam, and also in the neighbouring State of Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland, as well as the Sagaing region of Myanmar. The split within the ‘battalion’ drastically reduced ULFA’s strike capacities in the Tinsukia.

This was followed by the action taken by the Bangladesh against ULFA in 2009-2010, when most of the top leadership of the outfit, who had long received safe haven in that country, was handed over to India, with the exception ‘commander in chief’ Paresh Baruah. The outfit then split into a Pro-talk and Anti-talks faction in 2011, and the latter is now ULFA-I.

Despite declining fatalities, the surviving capacities of ULFA-I and the increasing penetration of the Maoists in the District had raised continuous concerns. The District recorded as many as seven explosions in 2012 – six of them by ULFA-I – though these resulted in just one fatality. 2011 and 2010 had recorded no such incidents, while one explosion was recorded in 2009.

According to partial data compiled by SATP, six extortion cases were reported in Tinsukia in 2012 rising from two incidents in 2011 & one in 2010 [a majority of extortion cases are believed to go unreported]. In one such incident in December 2012, ULFA-I sent extortion notes to legislators Bolin Chetia, from the Sadiya Assembly constituency, and Dilip Moran, from the Doom Dooma Assembly constituency, both in the District, asking them to pay INR 2 million each. Extortion by the militant groups remains a major cause of concern. A “very conservative estimate” by security sources reported in the media on January 24, 2013, indicated that the militants collected ‘at least’ INR 270 million from the State in 2012. ULFA-I topped the extortion assessment chart.

Tinsukia occupies an area of 3,790 square kilometres, with a population of 1,316,948, and is bounded by Arunachal Pradesh on three sides. The District is inhibited by Assamese, Bengali, Nepali and Hindi speaking people, besides backward communities including Adivasis, Morans and Muttocks.

The District also boasts the oldest oil refinery in India, at Digboi, besides places like Margherita and Ledo, well known for coal mining. Illegal mining in Margherita Subdivision is believed to be among the main sources of funds for ULFA-I, the National Socialist Council for Nagalim (NSCN) factions, and CPI-Maoist. A report by District authorities cited intelligence inputs to note, “creation of huge amount of slush funds because of the illegal diversion and exploitation of coal” by the militant groups in league with local anti-socials had led to criminalisation of many institutions and triggered tension in the area. In one incident targeting the mining sector, suspected militants of the Khaplang faction of NSCN (NSCN-K) abducted four employees of Brahmaputra Infrastructure Private Ltd. from their camp at Tikak Colliery at Ledo on January 11, 2013. They were rescued by SFs the day after.

A September 12, 2012, news report claimed that ULFA-I had set-up two camps in the Manabhum and Kharsang areas of Arunachal Pradesh’s Changlang District, bordering Tinsukia, along with NSCN-K. ULFA-I and NSCN-K have also helped the Arunachal Pradesh-based United People’s Democratic Front (UPDF), operating from Lohit and Changlang Districts.

The SFs have continued operations against militants in 2013, and have already arrested six, including five of ULFA-I and one of NSCN-IM], in Tinsukia. SFs had arrested 30 ULFA-I militants in 2012, up from 23 in 2011. One suspected CPI-Maoist cadre was also arrested in the District. In addition, 15 militants belonging to ULFA-I have already surrendered in 2013, while seven ULFA-I militant surrendered in 2012.The most prominent surrender was of the ‘deputy commander-in-chief’ and ‘eastern zone commander’ of ULFA-I, Bijoy Das alias Bijoy Chinese, in February 2013.

Further, the Moran and Muttock communities inhabiting Tinsukia and neighbouring Districts of Sivasagar and Dibrugarh, have been demanding Scheduled Tribes (ST) status and have threatened ‘armed rebellion’ in case their demand is not met. Significantly, most of the ULFA cadres in the upper Assam region, which includes Tinsukia, come from these two communities. Adivasi militants groups have also raised a similar demand, though most of these groups are currently under a ceasefire.

Worryingly, the Sadiya Subdivision of Tinsukia, accessible only by boat, has been substantially penetrated by the CPI-Maoist. The Subdivision sits next to the Lohit and Lower Dibang Valley of Arunachal Pradesh, an area marked by the CPI-Maoist as their ‘resting post’, and has recorded fatalities as well as extortion incidents. State Inspector-General of Police, Central Western Range (IGP-CWR), L.R. Bishnoi, noted, on April 26, 2013, “Our investigation has revealed that the group [CPI-Maoist] is trying to strengthen its base in the Northeast so that the region, particularly Arunachal Pradesh, can be used as a safe refuge for their senior members when anti-Maoist operations intensify in the rest of the country.”

A response to the emerging CPI-Maoist threat came in the last week of March 2013, when State Governor, J.B. Patnaik accorded a special category status to Tinsukia District, to tackle the growing Maoist influence. The State Government constituted a 13-member High-powered Committee headed by State Power and Industry Minister, Pradyut Bordoloi [one of the MLAs from the District], with senior officers from various Departments, to prepare a special developmental plan [Integrated District Action Plan (IDAP)] for the Tinsukia. IDAP will focus on infrastructure development and avenues of employment generation.

The District Deputy Commissioner (DC) S.S Meenakshi Sundaram, on April 8, 2013, announced that a baseline survey would be conducted in all 1,126 villages of the District, with special focus on about 200 villages identified as CPI-Maoist and ULFA-affected, to prepare the IDAP.

Earlier, in 2011, State Police, taking a cue from their Andhra Pradesh counterparts, had sent a proposal to develop a strong intelligence-led security structure to help the Police respond to the Maoist threat. Proposals from the Police included changing the post of zonal Superintendent of Police – Special Branch (SP-SB) based at Jorhat, to SP – Operations (SP-O) or SP – Left Wing Extremism (SP-LWE), to bring all operations and intelligence-gathering mechanisms against the Maoists under a single officer. It also called for improving road connectivity [seven roads were proposed in Dibrugarh and Tinsukia], and augmenting manpower and Infrastructure, to aid policing in remote areas.

In March 2012, Assam & Arunachal Pradesh decided to carry out operations by Joint Police teams, based on latest information about militant movements in “specific areas” on both sides of the State borders. The plan was initially implemented in the border areas along Tinsukia District of Assam and three Districts of Arunachal Pradesh – Lohit, Changlang and Lower Dibang Valley – and was later extended to include Tirap and East Siang. An October 2, 2012, report later indicated that the SFs had intensified operations against the ULFA militants hiding along the Arunachal-Assam borders along Dibrugarh-Tinsukia-Sivasagar Districts of Assam and Changlang and Lohit Districts of Arunachal Pradesh.

Although the overall fatalities in Assam have come down from 758 in 2000 to just 91 in 2012, constant vigilance is particularly required in vulnerable Districts such as Goalpara and Tinsukia, which share borders with other susceptible Northeastern States, including Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya and Nagaland. At the ‘Chief Ministers Conference on Public Order’ held at New Delhi on April 15, 2013, Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi conceded that the the downward trend in violence was reversible, and rightly emphasized the need for coordinated action with Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and some parts of Meghalaya, if training, arms supply, transit routes and shelters for militants operating in Assam were to be choked off. Gogoi noted, "In the past few years, there has been a declining trend of militant violence and talks are on with several militant outfits. However, it would be over-optimistic to declare that the nightmare of militant violence is over."

Extremist efforts for a revival in Tinsukia underline enduring vulnerabilities and the necessity of extreme vigilance on the part of state agencies if the gains of the past years are to be consolidated into a permanent peace in Assam.

Civilians

Security Force Personnel

Terrorists/Insurgents

Total

BANGLADESH

Islamist Extremism

INDIA

Jammu and Kashmir

Manipur

Left-wing Extremism

Chhattisgarh

Jharkhand

Maharashtra

Odisha

Total (INDIA)

PAKISTAN

Balochistan

FATA

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

Punjab

Sindh

Total (PAKISTAN)