The body blow that the Security Forces (SFs) inflicted on the Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) in West Bengal with the killing of its politburo member Mallojula Koteswara Rao alias Kishanji, on November 24, 2011, has been followed through with a number of other successes, including key arrests and surrenders, resulting in a near complete halt to Maoist violence in 2012.
Partial data collected by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP) confirms this trend and records no fatality in the civilian and SF categories, though one Maoist fatality in a Left Wing Extremism (LWE)-related incident was recorded in 2013: Hemanta Mahato, a leader of the CPI-Maoist-backed People's Committee against Police Atrocities (PCPA), to death by angry villagers of Nedabahara in Jhargram Police of West Bengal on August 17, 2013.
constableDistrict
In another sign of decline of the Maoist threat, the State Government granted the Railways permission to run trains at 'whatever speed it feels appropriate' between Kharagpur and Tatanagar and Midnapore and Adra, nearly three years after theJnaneswari Express disaster. Further, during the first phase of the five-phasepanchayat (local self government institution) polls conducted in July, voter turnout was at 65 percent in Bankura, 60 percent in Purulia and 65 percent in the West Midnapore , the areas earlier worst affected by Maoist disruption and violence.
declared
District
Securityjoint operationDistrictDistrictDistrict
Meanwhile, the State Government has taken a number of initiatives for the development of Maoist-affected areas to further consolidate its position. On January 8, 2014, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee stated, "Our focus is creating Jungalmahal and on improving , such as health, education and infrastructure." Claiming that the success story of restoring peace in Jungalmahal was a model before the world, she recalled that 15,000 boys and girls were recruited to the Police and another 21,000 as 'Civic Police'. The Indian Army also recruited 549 persons in 2011-12 and 901 in 2012-13, from the LWE-affected Districts of West Bengal. Further, the State Government is also coming up with a tourist circuit in the West Midnapore .
politburocentral committeedeclared
In another significant development, in March 2013, the Supreme Court stayed a Calcutta (HC) order directing West Bengal to treat arrested members of CPI-Maoist as "political prisoners". Meanwhile, the West Bengal State Assembly passed a Bill on August 27, 2013, to exclude persons who are members of any banned or terrorist organisations from being granted of political prisoners.
(The author Mrinal Kanta Das is Research Assistant, Institute for Conflict Management)
<span style="\"font-family:" arial,="" helvetica,="" sans-serif;="" font-size:="" 11px;="" line-height:="" 18px;="" text-align:="" justify;\"="">(The view expressed in the article is of the author and not India Blooms News Service)
Support Our Journalism
We cannot do without you.. your contribution supports unbiased journalism
IBNS is not driven by any ism- not wokeism, not racism, not skewed secularism, not hyper right-wing or left liberal ideals, nor by any hardline religious beliefs or hyper nationalism. We want to serve you good old objective news, as they are. We do not judge or preach. We let people decide for themselves. We only try to present factual and well-sourced news.
