Life & Death on Maoists Land

Kasalpara villagers fear CRPF backlash

Pavan Dahat reports for the Hindu on December 4, 2014 that the locals claim the security forces have used force under the pretext of carrying out combing operations.

Blades Maya, a resident of Kasalpara village said, the jawans searched every house in her village and detained five men after Monday's encounter. The encounter was the second such incident in Kasalpara in the last ten days. Due to the advice of Maoists the village folk stayed in a corner of the village and escaped from the crossfire on November 21. Around 25 women met this reporter near a stream outside the village and expressed fears about their husbands' whereabouts. Another woman accused the CRPF of beating up many women from the village.

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Rahul Pandita: Hindu, Saturday December 13, 2014

"The CRPF is so ill-prepared to fight Maoists, it is a miracle its troops are not deserting en masse".

For 15 days , since November 15, more than 2000 troops from six battalions of the CRPF had been venturing out to conduct SADO- Search and Destroy Operations - in Chhattisgarh's Sukma district. The troops were asked to engage Maoists if they ever came in contact in the absence of any intelligence inputs with them. 

The local tribal population is fed up with the establishment/government inasmuch as they are left in the lurch to the mercy of the Maoists. "The government has not diagnosed the problem and is behaving rather like a quack", a CRPF officer said.

A CRPF soldier, undergoing treatment after December 1 episode in which 14 CRPF personnel were killed, said "One thing I tell you, it is better to be a Maoist in Chhattisgarh than be a CRPF jawan". 

Can we expect a solution to the Naxalite menace in Chhattisgarh or elsewhere in the country under these circumstances?

What a sham in planning and execution with unintelligent and halfhearted approach by even the extraordinary setup like CRPF?

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