Review the hunt

When 76 paramilitary personnel are killed in a single ambush by Maoists,it is an understatement to say that something had gone wrong. That this came a couple of days after Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram warned in Lalgarh that Maoists are constantly revising their strategy and regrouping cutting the state and civilians no slack to be complacent should not be lost on either the Centre or any of the states involved in Operation Green Hunt. Moreover,Tuesday mornings ambush was no low intensity affair: almost an entire company of CRPF got wiped out in the attack between Chintalnar and Tademetla in Chhattisgarhs Dantewada district,unlike the killing of 11 personnel of the SoG on Sunday in Orissa in a landmine blast. This is a large-scale,if protracted,war; Maoists are sworn to the destruction of the Indian state; Tuesdays massacre is not to be construed as a warning or another small episode in a war of attrition. It was the thing in itself.

Therefore,it is time to review Green Hunt: a tactical upgrade,even an overhaul. The CRPF personnel killed by Naxals did not expect engagement at that point,as they were reportedly on their way to Tademetla as back-up for another company they may have believed was already engaged in an encounter. Whether they ran into a Naxal camp or trap,they were sitting ducks,surrounded by what police suspect were about 1000 Maoists on a hilltop. For so long the Maoist menace has been underestimated it may not harm us now to,even,overestimate it a bit. The ambush once more demonstrated its intention and resilience,and on a scale never observed earlier.

A major part of the problem is that there are seven states in Green Hunt along with the Centre. Central forces have to not only operate in territory they are unfamiliar with but also depend on state-provided intelligence,which on Tuesday was inadequate or inaccurate or absent. It is imperative to bolster the scope and effectiveness of operations by upgrading and increasing armaments,by increasing personnel strength and,more importantly,by providing them the right training and intelligence framework. In any case,pushing a large contingent straight into the jaws of death is a tactical disaster that puts strategy under a cloud. There must be revisions and reinforcements at all levels. But reinforcing the men on the ground must move beyond robbing Peter to pay Paul shifting a contingent from Naxal-affected Location A to Naxal-affected Location B. The unnecessary death of even five personnel helps the war of attrition against the state; that of most of a company is unaffordable.