The Indian armed security forces tasted their favourite dessert of victory against the alleged group of the extreme ‘left-corner of the ideological spectrum, the ‘Maoists’ in their vigorous spree to deseed them in the Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra on November 13th. The aforementioned was the result of a ten-hour-long gun sponsored battle between the C60 commandos and the local extremists’ groups in the vicinity of the Mardintola village in the Dhanora Taluka, resulting in twenty-four casualties. The incident is largely being viewed as a major landmark in the trail of ventures launched against the said violent faction.
Milind Teltumbde, the core functionary of the party’s central committee, happens to be one among the twenty-four deceased, whose life was raised to the pedestal of Rupees Fifty Lakh by the Maharashtra government. Five AK-47 rifles, one under-barrel grenade launcher (UBGL), nine SLRs, three 303 rifles, one INSAS rifle, one pistol and explosives have been recovered by the police personnel, among many others stipulated contingents of arms and ammunitions in the Maoist appropriation. Besides the loss on the other side, four police personnel have also been on the receiving end of several severe injuries.
With these violent clashes coming into the current picture, the attacks on the Maoist groups, the edition of 2018 instantly hits the affected memories. When the thirty-seven Maoist casualties took place in the hands of C60 commandos and the CRPF in the Etapalli tehsil of Gadchiroli district, weakening the extreme core of the said leftist group.
However, under the light of these violent quarrels, one should at no cost consider the ‘Maoists’ as mere victims, where the mentioned commando ventures are just the reciprocations of what they inflict upon the entire region, causing irreparable scars on the lives and livelihood of uncountable individuals.
In the year 2019, fifteen personnel of the C-60 Commando unit of Maharashtra Police and one civilian driver were shot to death in an armed attack by the Maoists in Jamburkheda village of Gadchiroli district. Moreover, on 3 April 2021 in the state of Chhattisgarh, the People’s Liberation Guerilla Army launched a strong contingent comprising men derived from the CRPF’s COBRA unit, a unit from Bastar sponsored Battalion and the District Reserve Guard and causing the deaths of twenty-two security forces personnel deployed in the Sukma district.
As per the figures released by the Ministry of Home Affairs, the erstwhile huge geographical influence of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) has been declining increasingly within certain Indian states, with ninety-six districts in ten states in 2010 to mere forty-one districts in 2020. It has been more like an action-reaction phenomenon between the state deployed armed forces and the violent guerilla factions, with a lesser loss on the stateside.
But nonetheless, the Maoist issue still stands as pertinent as ever before with its appropriated ‘liberated’ area accounting 10000 square kilometres, the maximum of which falls outside the government’s controlling threshold.
It is not a hidden fact that Maharashtra’s government still finds it difficult to tackle the eighty frontal Maoist organizations, functioning primarily from Mumbai, Nagpur, Nashik, and Pune. The very fact that each time the Indian government disillusioned with the death of the Maoist conviction, each time it resurrected with much more determination, is big enough a reason to worry. The complex socio-economic realities continue to provide the element of sustainability to the Maoists, which still remain unaddressed, making it humanly difficult to weigh the ideological seesaw that at once happens to tilt towards one side and sometimes towards the other…
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