The ‘urban Maoist’ front

Mishra and Rahi,both of Uttarakhand,were arrested at Aheri in Gadchiroli and Deori in Gondia along with alleged couriers for two senior Naxals. Narmada and Ramder.

“An eroding tribal cadre base due to depleting recruitment,as also the difficulties in intellectually equipping the tribal cadre well enough to take the movement forward,are the reasons why CPI (Maoist) leaders are looking up to the urban cadres to be ready to take over,” Kadam says.

“The urban cadres have of late been discussing this subject with the central committee and have been seeking financial help to run urban activities and guidance on how to develop better coordination among the urban frontal organisations of the party,” he says.

“One of the main subtexts of this programme is to cultivate urban cadre to lead militant activities that are facing a leadership crisis due to depleting recruitment,elimination of the existing cadres due to security operations and large-scale surrenders by senior cadres,” Kadam adds.

The urban fronts,Kadam says,comprise organisations in “revolutionary democratic” activities,opposition to “war on people”,displacement and “violence on women”,and in “cultural” activities.

“They are,however,finding it difficult since urban cadres find life in the forest too difficult to sustain. The visits by couriers such as Mishra and Rahi are basically to help coordinate and streamline these activities,” Kadam says.

With Mishra police allegedly found an encrypted microchip embedded inside a visiting card,along with some “sensitive” documents. Police say that this is what led the searches at Saibaba’s home.

“The two told us they had been handed over the material seized from them by Saibaba. That’s why we searched Saibaba’s Delhi residence and seized the hard disks,pen drives etc. We have sealed it all and will have them forensically checked,” says Kadam.

In New Delhi on Saturday,Saibaba told reporters,“My pen drives,hard disks,laptops were confiscated without a proper seal,which leaves open the possibility of planting fake evidence later.”

Sources say the two Gadchiroli arrests are a culmination of infighting between Rahi and the core faction that implements urban activities,“Rahi worked independently without following the core faction system,incurring the wrath of the faction’s members. He would interact directly with state committees,” an officer says.

Among other tasks before the CPI (Maoist),according to a document police claim to have seized,is raising in each state a chapter of a Front Against War on People to counter Operation Green Hunt.