Maoists make a corridor
Sunday, March 18, 2007
ANGUL: The infiltration of Maoists into the border areas of Dhenkanal, Keonjhar and Jajpur districts has posed a renewed challenge for the Orissa Police.
They have identified the group active in the border areas of these three districts as CPIML (Janashakti). The State Government woke up from its slumber after the killings of three forest staff in Kandhar area of Dhenkanal district. The incident has indeed established the fact that the Maoists are slowly advancing into new areas of the State.
The mainline ultras have already made a corridor from Sundargarh to Rayagada via Sambalpur, Deogarh and Phulbani from where they are slated to carry out their activities. The area from where the new outfit is operating is about 10,000 sq km, covering the three districts.
The problems for the police, to fight and root out the ultras from these areas, are both logistic and administrative in nature. Though for Maoists, the area is a single unit, for police it belongs to three districts coming under three police ranges. While ultras are conversant with the roads and passes, district police are unfamiliar with the road communication and Naxal hideouts.
Moreover, a strategy is yet to be worked out to integrate the fighting mechanisms in these areas, sources maintained. But what is really required here is motivation of local police to fight the ultras. Absence of proper infrastructure and latest combat strategies are the other hurdles, which the police have been facing.
Meanwhile, a top police official claimed that if the government fully backs police, all the ultras can be wiped out as it did in Deogarh. A coordinated effort by the three districts is necessary to wipe out the menace in Dhenkanal too. However, despite all odds, Maoists have not been able to set up a liberated base in Orissa as they had succeeded in creating their own in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. Newindpress
posted by Resistance 3/18/2007 03:12:00 PM,
