Dear Friends and Comrades,
For the last one year and a half, we have been hearing and
worrying about the deployment of Army in Bastar[1]
area. When all of us have gathered here to discuss about the deployment of army
and about the War on People of this country, a brigade of Indian Army is being
trained near Kokkodi village on the road connecting Kondagaon and Narayanpur
district headquarters in Chhattisgarh (CG). This brigade arrived here in the
second week of March 2012. Earlier two brigades had completed their training in
Kondagaon and Narayanpur districts. At first, 1700 jawans of Mountain Brigade
belonging to the Army entered Bastar in end May 2011. After their training was
completed, the second brigade came and departed. The training of the first
brigade was conducted near Masaura village on the Raipur-Jagdalpur highway
while that of the second was completed near Bunagaon on the
Kondagaon-Narayanpur road. Now they have advanced further in the direction of
Narayanpur town and are being trained in Kokkodi. It is clear that the Army is
advancing further according to a plan to gradually cross Narayanpur town and
penetrate into the remote Maad (Abujmaad) area. All this is an exercise to
gradually occupy the 750 sq kms area allotted by the CG government to the army
for ‘training’.
In the second week of April 2012, General VK Singh of the
Indian Army supervised the training of his jawans and did aerial survey of the
proposed training area. Earlier, in the first week of April, the Lucknow Central
Command Officer Commanding-in-Chief Lieutenant General Anil Chait, Central
India Area Command Jabalpur General Officer Commanding Lieutenant General R.S.
Pradhan and Brigadier Amrik Singh belonging to the COSA (CG-Odisha Sub Area)
Command toured Bastar. They reviewed the training program going on in Kondagaon
and Narayanpur districts.
The deployment of Army
and all the necessary preparations for this purpose are getting completed
rapidly on a big scale. In fact, a nodal cell was formed by the Army long back to
study and monitor the Maoist People’s War (PW). With a long term view of completely
suppressing the Maoist movement going on in the Central and Eastern parts of
India, two Sub Area Head Quarters (HQ) are about to be formed, each with 15,000
soldiers. One would be at Jagdalpur in Bastar and the other would be at Ambarda
on Odisha-Bengal borders. The Sub Area HQ was formally inaugurated in Raipur,
the capital of CG. They are establishing Brigade HQ by forcefully occupying
1800 acres of land from the peasants of Chakarbhantha village near Bilaspur. Retired
Army officers are being employed to give training in anti-IED operations to
CRPF. Another training school for the
army is about to be established near Saraipaali on CG-Odisha borders.
Even before entering the Maoist areas, the Central Defence
and Home ministries had given several powers to the Army in the name of
‘self-defence’. These powers given in the name of ‘Guiding Principles’ and
the provisions in the Armed Forces
Special Powers Act (AFSPA) are almost the same. Air Force is also involved in
its preparations apart from the Army. In fact, usage of Air Force helicopters
has been going on for a long time. Apart from the MI-17 helicopters belonging
to the IAF, ‘Dhruv’ helicopters belonging to the BSF are being vastly used for
transport of armed forces during military operations in Maoist areas. In the
combat, search and rescue operations that are carried on through these
helicopters, the Special Force ‘Garud’ belonging to the IAF are being used.
Apart from the helicopters given by the Centre, the CG government is taking
some more helicopters on hire and utilizing them. At present, the process of
establishing an Air Force air base by occupying 300 acres of land near Nandini
in Durg district is on. An air base is getting built in Narayanpur too. On the
other hand, efforts are on to build an air base in Bodeli village on the
Dhanora-Gadchiroli road. On the whole, a hundred helipads are getting built in
nine ‘Naxal affected’ states.
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) or drones manufactured in US
and Israel are also being used on a vast scale. These take real time images,
find out about the guerillas’ movements and their camps on the ground and send
the data to the control room and in turn they are sent immediately to the
forces participating in operations through modern devices. Small UAVs named
‘Netra’ that run on rechargeable batteries are carried and used by the forces
during the operations. 1800 mobile towers are newly getting built in the Maoist
movement areas. A Regional Navigation Satellite System is being established
under the direction of Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO).
It is clear that all these resemble war preparations by occupying armies against enemy countries.
The preparations are on the scale of attacks done on foreign armies. What
foreign armies are present inside the country according to the rulers? Which foreign
elements are present in the heart of our country in Bastar? The Indian Army is
descending on Bastar to wage war against
whom? It is necessary to know this in detail.
