Maoist tourism' for the adventurous?
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Mar 14, 2007, 4:30 GMT
Patna, March 14 (IANS) Move over Buddhist tourism. If a Bihar cop has his way, there will soon be a Maoist circuit - though this one may strictly be for the brave hearts.
Additional Director General of Police (Headquarters) Abhyanand wants to turn the Maoist-dominated areas of Bihar into a tourism zone, which he says will lead to job opportunities and development in such areas.
'If Chief Minister Nitish Kumar gives us the go-ahead, the police will launch Maoist tourism, the first of its kind in the country, to fight the terror unleashed by these Naxalite forces,' Abhyanand said.
'What I mean by 'Maoist tourism' is to set up tourist spots in Maoist-hit areas. We will develop some of the rebel hideouts and places of massacres in different villages as tourist spots and the police will provide foolproof security to visitors,' he said.
'If unemployed supporters and sympathisers of Maoists taste the fruit of development, they will desert their dreaded masters,' Abhyanand said.
The strength of the Maoists in their rural stronghold lies with jobless and frustrated youths who opt to work for them in the absence of any other work.
To begin with a few areas under the south Bihar districts of Gaya, Jehanabad, Arwal and Aurangabad will be developed as Maoist tourist spots.
Abhyanand said Maoist tourism would attract adventurous tourists, both domestic and foreign. 'Those who want to experience adventure will visit these places,' he said.
'Maoist tourism may sound like a funny idea as promoting tourism under the shadow of Maoists is something odd, but sometimes negative ideas lead to positive outcomes,' he said.
Abhyanand earlier got recognition for his innovative Super-30 idea, under which poor students were given free training, food and shelter to crack prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs). Super-30 is a huge success story as last year 28 of 30 students chosen by him got selected for IIT.
The cop himself hails from a village under the Amas police station in the Maoist violence-hit Gaya district.
In some rural pockets of Bihar, the outlawed Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) is more feared than the state machinery.
Maoist guerrillas, claiming to fight for the landless and poor, have a strong presence in over two dozen districts in the state and are spreading their network in districts bordering Nepal
posted by Resistance 3/14/2007 03:47:00 PM,
