Opinion Tactical toll

As this newspaper reported in the case of the Lahiri attack last year in Gadchiroli,where 17 cops were ambushed,so it may have been in this latest incident: a “false alarm” could have lured the security forces into a trap. Early reports suggest the CRPF men were returning from an operation that didn’t happen.

But is this horrific incident a long-term setback? In the short term,it is; but it is too early for a long-term assessment. Operation Green Hunt is just five months in; this is the first time that India’s elite forces have penetrated deep into areas where regular policemen hardly ventured during the last 30 years of the Maoist insurgency. Thousands of paramilitary forces and state police are now swarming all over terrain about which there is little knowledge in government records. In fact,if Naxals were really in such great control of these areas,they should have by now been able to inflict much severer damage. They are either lying low or have strategically kept themselves away to regroup — and then check for the possibilities of well-calculated precision attacks like this one. The two latest incidents are possibly indicative of a new Maoist strategy: that,for now,they won’t venture out freely to attack the police in their (police) areas as they did in pre-Operation Green Hunt days,and would strike only where they feel they still have a strategic advantage over the forces.

So,in the initial stages of the operation,such casualties on the police side in core Maoist strongholds should have been expected. The government has made it clear that the operation is going to be a long-drawn-out process that may go on for three years at a stretch.

Lists of tribals killed in the operation are out,some being pushed by Maoist sympathisers. While it is very difficult to establish who these people are,whether they have really been killed — or,as Naxals often do,if they have simply been taken away by the Naxals to create the impression that they are missing — there can be no missing the fact that many of the villagers are active militia members or party workers. How else can the presence of hundreds of Naxals in an ambush be accounted for? Where do these people come from if not from the villages?

We could very likely see,therefore,more of a crackdown by security forces on these innocent or not-so-innocent villagers in the days to come. Ironically and unfortunately for the security apparatus,such a crackdown would hardly bring them relief; not only because of the “prying eyes” of human rights activists,but also because it gives Naxals bigger ammunition to consolidate their so-called mass base.

Having said this,there is also no missing the fact that the Naxals haven’t been scared out of their areas yet by the forces. They are still managing to steal a march over them whenever and wherever possible. The waylaying of a truck laden with a potentially explosive chemical from a Gadchiroli highway last month and the subsequent unloading of the chemical — using three tractors,for two days,in a forest dominated by thousands of Operation Green Hunt commandos! — showed that the Naxals have enormous determination. The Naxals clearly understand the chemical’s utility; and it would be foolish to believe the chemical must have become useless by now. According to security experts,their sympathisers or pointmen from mines in the area could well serve as technical advisors in putting the chemical to use. Contrast this preparedness with the Gadchiroli police,officials of which don’t even know the exact number of such trucks plying through the district.

Clearly,CRPF Special DGP Vijay Raman,who is commandeering Operation Green Hunt,may have to re-look into the assessment he had expressed,while talking to this newspaper a few days ago,that the Naxal power is grossly overstated.

vivek.deshpande@expressindia.com