Hundreds of left-wing insurgents yesterday hit a patrol of the Central Reserve Police Force in Dantewada, said S.R.P. Kalluri, a deputy inspector general of police. The “savage” attacks show “the brutality the Maoists are capable of,” Chidambaram said in New Delhi yesterday.

By Bibhudatta Pradhan at Bloomberg

April 7 (Bloomberg) — Indian security forces combed forests for Maoist rebels who killed 76 police in their biggest strike in four decades, as Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram vowed to press an offensive against the guerrillas.

A “massive search operation” is underway in the jungles of central Chhattisgarh state’s Dantewada district and neighboring areas, Inspector General of Police R.K. Vij said today by phone. Chidambaram said today there should be no “kneejerk reaction” and urged people to remain calm.

“You can’t expect instant success. We are paying the price for the neglect for the last 10 to 12 years,” Chidambaram said in a televised conference from Jagdalpur in Chhattisgarh after paying homage to those killed. “It will take 2 to 3 years” to contain the Maoists, he said.

The attacks are a setback to the minister’s efforts to rid India’s eastern states of the guerillas and open up regions rich in iron ore, coal, bauxite and manganese to investment. NMDC Ltd. operates its biggest iron-ore mine and Essar Steel Ltd. plans to build a $1.5 billion steel plant in the district where the rebels struck.

Hundreds of left-wing insurgents yesterday hit a patrol of the Central Reserve Police Force in Dantewada, said S.R.P. Kalluri, a deputy inspector general of police. The “savage” attacks show “the brutality the Maoists are capable of,” Chidambaram said in New Delhi yesterday.

Television channels showed a long line of coffins in a makeshift tent, each draped in an Indian flag, as authorities prepared to return the bodies of the victims to their families.

‘Spring Thunder’

“Unless you improve force capability and capacities, these incidents will keep on occurring,” said Ajai Sahni, executive director of the New Delhi-based Institute for Conflict Management.

Chhattisgarh is at the center of the country’s fight with the insurgents, who say they are fighting for the rights of millions of impoverished villagers left out of India’s economic boom. Chidambaram, 64, last year started a broad hunt for the rebels in their strongholds in 11 of 28 states, an offensive referred to as Operation Green Hunt.

The so-called Naxalite movement takes its name from a radical 1967 peasant uprising in a village called Naxalbari in the eastern state of West Bengal. It was greeted as “a peal of spring thunder” by China’s People Daily at its birth during the political purges of Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution.

Initially inspired by Maoist ideology, it has pressed a campaign of violence against the government, police and landowners in a class war that seeks to install communist rule.

FULL STORY

Help Make A Difference By Sharing These Articles On Facebook, Twitter And Elsewhere:

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
•