May has been a bloody month in terms of Maoist violence. Within 25 days, more than 50 lives have been lost in or around Chhattisgarh.
RAIPUR: A burst of light machine gun fire rips apart the bodies of nine policemen; a vehicle carrying CRPF jawans is lifted in the air by a powerful explosion, seven jawans die; another landmine blast waylays a wedding baraat, killing six of the groom's family, including a four year old child.
May has been a bloody month in terms of Maoist violence. Within 25 days, 50 lives have been lost in or around Chhattisgarh. Thirty-three of those killed were security personnel, with the rest being primarily civilians. If you account for casualties among Maoists, that cannot be confirmed in the absence of bodies, the toll crosses the 50 mark.
Barring one episode, none of the deaths made it to the front pages of national newspapers. Scattered across disparate districts, and tucked away from the national limelight, the deaths are symptomatic of the insistent insurgency engulfing Chhattisgarh from, literally, all four sides.
"If 20 people die in one incident, everyone takes notice, not when they die in one's and two's over 20 days," says Ajai Sahni, director, Institute for Conflict Management, a New Delhi based think tank, who decries the way the national response lurches from one watershed event to another, ignoring persistent routinized violence.
For Purnima Sarkar, May 4 was no routine day; it was the day of her son's much anticipated wedding. Early morning, her son Manoram woke up and dressed up in a sherwani. Accompanied by his doting 70 year old grandmother Tarulata, and other relatives, he left their home in Rajnandgaon in Chhattisgarh, and headed for Chandrapur in Maharashtra, where his fiance waited, dressed up in bridal finery.
The wedding party, a convoy of two Sumo vehicles, had crossed the border into Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra, when a landmine explosion hit the second car. The vehicle lurched in the air and landed with a thud, amidst a volley of gunfire. Moments later, Manoram walked out, with blood splattered on his sherwani. His grandmother and five others were dead, including a four year old child. The wedding was called off. The Maoists are yet to issue a statement, accepting responsibility, or offering regret. "It appears to be a case of mistaken identity," said R K Vij, IG, Durg. The driver of the vehicle had earlier driven police cars and Sumos are often used by the police.
Ten days later, on May 14, another wedding was interrupted, in Gumla district of Jharkhand, bordering Chhattisgarh's Jashpur district in the north. Gunmen broke into the small mandap and shot dead the groom and four others. "My son had returned home for the marriage around a fortnight ago from Punjab where he had gone for a job," the groom's mother Chumdru Oraon told TOI. Next day, four people were killed in same district. Both instances involved uniformed gunmen, suspected to be cadres of rival Maoist groups, and there were reports of rivalry and land disputes underlying the killings. Earlier in the month, 11 security personnel had been killed in an encounter with Maoists in neighbouring Lohardaga district.
From the north, the trail of violence travelled south to Dantewada, Chhattisgarh's most intense battleground. Arvind Rai, commandant of CRPF's 2nd battalion, left his station at Sukma, on May 17, with a group of jawans. He travelled a short distance to Kerlapal, on the badly broken national highway 211, to inspect new barracks built to accomodate jawans who had to vacate a school building on the Supreme Court's orders.
As Rai headed back, in a Scorpio that led a convoy of three vehicles, the second vehicle, a Tavera, was hit by a powerful IED (Improvised Explosive Device) blast. Reduced to a carcass, the vehicle was flung 50 feet away. Five bodies were found inside, the driver's torso hung from a tree. Another jawan succumbed to injuries in Jagdalpur hospital. "Four of the jawans were from Jammu and Kashmir," said Pankaj Singh, CRPF IG. "Another from Orissa, one from Rae Bareilly".
The next day, in neighbouring Bijapur district, Maoists opened fire at policemen who were attending a wedding reception inside a Salwa Judum camp. Constable Pavan Mandavi, was killed and special police officer Ramaiyya was abducted. Next day, Ramaiyya's body was found at an isolated spot, said R N Das, the district SP. Special police officers are local adivasi youth who earn just 3000 rupees a month.
The very next morning, less than 100 kilometres away from Bijapur, across the border in Maharashtra's Bhamragarh tehsil of Gadhcroli district, Maoists killed a commando of an elite anti Maoist squad. Hours later, three other policemen died in another nearby skirmish. All three were in their twenties, two were SPOs.
Once again, violence ricocheted from one border to another, with the latest police casualties taking place on the Chhattisgarh's eastern border with Orissa, just 140 kilometres from the state capital, inside a contiguous forest area that connects Gariaband, the far end of Raipur district, to Orissa's Nuapara district.
On Monday, ten policemen, led by Rajesh Pawar, additional superintedent of police had crossed over into Orissa to meet Maoist deserters, based on a tip off. Their vehicle broke down, and as they returned, they were ambushed at a bend in the forest road.
It took half a day for the police to recover nine bodies, lying in a bloody heap next to a bullet ridden Sumo. In one case, the skull had come apart. "The ASP's body had been riddled by 20 bullets," said an officer who visited the spot.
As grieving families reached Gariaband to collect the bodies, they were told the bodies had been airlifted to the state capital for state honours by the chief minister. Most relatives burst out in anger, but then clambered on cars to Raipur. "I have nothing to say," said Nanderam, a retired school teacher who broke down when he was finally handed over the body of his son, constable Bhishma.
"We respond to Chinatnar (when 76 CRPF jawans killed in one ambush), but we do not respond to 1110 casualties in 2010, or 900 in 2009, or the 300 casualties that have already taken place in 2011, 60 of them in Chhattisgarh alone," says Ajai Sahni. "Over the years, fatalities have been escalating across areas affected with Left wing extremism. That should be the principal measure or significant index of the threat that Maoists pose rather than transient incidents".
TIMELINE
May 3: 11 security personnel killed in Maoist encounter in Lohardaga district of Jharkhand, near the north border of Chhattisgarh
May 5: Six of a wedding party from Chhattisgarh killed in Gadchiroli in Maharashtra, on state's western border
May 8 : Special police officer killed in encounter on the day of Bastar bypoll
May 14 and 16 : Nine people killed in inter-Maoist warfare in Gumla in Jharkhand, bordering Jashpur in Chhattisgarh
May 17 : Seven CRPF jawans killed in a landmine explosion, 6 kilometres south of Sukma on NH 221, in Dantewada district
May 18: Two policemen killed in Bijapur district during a wedding reception, police claim Maoists killed too
May 18 : Four policemen killed in encounter with Maoists in Gadchiroli's Bhamragarh tehsil bordering Chhattisgarh, once again police claim Maoist too have suffered casualties
May 23 : Nine policemen, including ASP rank officer, killed in gunfire on Chhattisgarh-Orissa border in Nuapara district. In another incident, Maoists slit the throat of one SPO.
May has been a bloody month in terms of Maoist violence. Within 25 days, 50 lives have been lost in or around Chhattisgarh. Thirty-three of those killed were security personnel, with the rest being primarily civilians. If you account for casualties among Maoists, that cannot be confirmed in the absence of bodies, the toll crosses the 50 mark.
Barring one episode, none of the deaths made it to the front pages of national newspapers. Scattered across disparate districts, and tucked away from the national limelight, the deaths are symptomatic of the insistent insurgency engulfing Chhattisgarh from, literally, all four sides.
"If 20 people die in one incident, everyone takes notice, not when they die in one's and two's over 20 days," says Ajai Sahni, director, Institute for Conflict Management, a New Delhi based think tank, who decries the way the national response lurches from one watershed event to another, ignoring persistent routinized violence.
For Purnima Sarkar, May 4 was no routine day; it was the day of her son's much anticipated wedding. Early morning, her son Manoram woke up and dressed up in a sherwani. Accompanied by his doting 70 year old grandmother Tarulata, and other relatives, he left their home in Rajnandgaon in Chhattisgarh, and headed for Chandrapur in Maharashtra, where his fiance waited, dressed up in bridal finery.
The wedding party, a convoy of two Sumo vehicles, had crossed the border into Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra, when a landmine explosion hit the second car. The vehicle lurched in the air and landed with a thud, amidst a volley of gunfire. Moments later, Manoram walked out, with blood splattered on his sherwani. His grandmother and five others were dead, including a four year old child. The wedding was called off. The Maoists are yet to issue a statement, accepting responsibility, or offering regret. "It appears to be a case of mistaken identity," said R K Vij, IG, Durg. The driver of the vehicle had earlier driven police cars and Sumos are often used by the police.
Ten days later, on May 14, another wedding was interrupted, in Gumla district of Jharkhand, bordering Chhattisgarh's Jashpur district in the north. Gunmen broke into the small mandap and shot dead the groom and four others. "My son had returned home for the marriage around a fortnight ago from Punjab where he had gone for a job," the groom's mother Chumdru Oraon told TOI. Next day, four people were killed in same district. Both instances involved uniformed gunmen, suspected to be cadres of rival Maoist groups, and there were reports of rivalry and land disputes underlying the killings. Earlier in the month, 11 security personnel had been killed in an encounter with Maoists in neighbouring Lohardaga district.
From the north, the trail of violence travelled south to Dantewada, Chhattisgarh's most intense battleground. Arvind Rai, commandant of CRPF's 2nd battalion, left his station at Sukma, on May 17, with a group of jawans. He travelled a short distance to Kerlapal, on the badly broken national highway 211, to inspect new barracks built to accomodate jawans who had to vacate a school building on the Supreme Court's orders.
As Rai headed back, in a Scorpio that led a convoy of three vehicles, the second vehicle, a Tavera, was hit by a powerful IED (Improvised Explosive Device) blast. Reduced to a carcass, the vehicle was flung 50 feet away. Five bodies were found inside, the driver's torso hung from a tree. Another jawan succumbed to injuries in Jagdalpur hospital. "Four of the jawans were from Jammu and Kashmir," said Pankaj Singh, CRPF IG. "Another from Orissa, one from Rae Bareilly".
The next day, in neighbouring Bijapur district, Maoists opened fire at policemen who were attending a wedding reception inside a Salwa Judum camp. Constable Pavan Mandavi, was killed and special police officer Ramaiyya was abducted. Next day, Ramaiyya's body was found at an isolated spot, said R N Das, the district SP. Special police officers are local adivasi youth who earn just 3000 rupees a month.
The very next morning, less than 100 kilometres away from Bijapur, across the border in Maharashtra's Bhamragarh tehsil of Gadhcroli district, Maoists killed a commando of an elite anti Maoist squad. Hours later, three other policemen died in another nearby skirmish. All three were in their twenties, two were SPOs.
Once again, violence ricocheted from one border to another, with the latest police casualties taking place on the Chhattisgarh's eastern border with Orissa, just 140 kilometres from the state capital, inside a contiguous forest area that connects Gariaband, the far end of Raipur district, to Orissa's Nuapara district.
On Monday, ten policemen, led by Rajesh Pawar, additional superintedent of police had crossed over into Orissa to meet Maoist deserters, based on a tip off. Their vehicle broke down, and as they returned, they were ambushed at a bend in the forest road.
It took half a day for the police to recover nine bodies, lying in a bloody heap next to a bullet ridden Sumo. In one case, the skull had come apart. "The ASP's body had been riddled by 20 bullets," said an officer who visited the spot.
As grieving families reached Gariaband to collect the bodies, they were told the bodies had been airlifted to the state capital for state honours by the chief minister. Most relatives burst out in anger, but then clambered on cars to Raipur. "I have nothing to say," said Nanderam, a retired school teacher who broke down when he was finally handed over the body of his son, constable Bhishma.
"We respond to Chinatnar (when 76 CRPF jawans killed in one ambush), but we do not respond to 1110 casualties in 2010, or 900 in 2009, or the 300 casualties that have already taken place in 2011, 60 of them in Chhattisgarh alone," says Ajai Sahni. "Over the years, fatalities have been escalating across areas affected with Left wing extremism. That should be the principal measure or significant index of the threat that Maoists pose rather than transient incidents".
TIMELINE
May 3: 11 security personnel killed in Maoist encounter in Lohardaga district of Jharkhand, near the north border of Chhattisgarh
May 5: Six of a wedding party from Chhattisgarh killed in Gadchiroli in Maharashtra, on state's western border
May 8 : Special police officer killed in encounter on the day of Bastar bypoll
May 14 and 16 : Nine people killed in inter-Maoist warfare in Gumla in Jharkhand, bordering Jashpur in Chhattisgarh
May 17 : Seven CRPF jawans killed in a landmine explosion, 6 kilometres south of Sukma on NH 221, in Dantewada district
May 18: Two policemen killed in Bijapur district during a wedding reception, police claim Maoists killed too
May 18 : Four policemen killed in encounter with Maoists in Gadchiroli's Bhamragarh tehsil bordering Chhattisgarh, once again police claim Maoist too have suffered casualties
May 23 : Nine policemen, including ASP rank officer, killed in gunfire on Chhattisgarh-Orissa border in Nuapara district. In another incident, Maoists slit the throat of one SPO.
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