The Hindu : PW changes tack on eve of elections

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Feb 08, 2004

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

PW changes tack on eve of elections

By K. Srinivas Reddy

HYDERABAD, FEB. 7. In a strategic move to deflect the focussed attention of the police in taking up anti-extremist operations in areas where the People's War (PW) presence is currently felt, naxalites are believed to have formed action teams and detailed them to operate in `non-struggle areas' all over the State.

PW action teams, consisting of two or three members, have proved to be highly effective in hitting the targets since their identification becomes extremely difficult for the police. Concealing short weapons, mostly 9 mm pistols, the teams would walk up to their prey, pump bullets and run away, as past incidents show.

The current strategy of forming action teams and hitting targets in `non-struggle areas,' villages and towns which police believe as totally free from naxalite activity, would automatically force authorities to deploy forces, which otherwise, would have been used for anti-naxal operations in forest tracts where PW continues to operate.

The naxalite party's plan apparently stems from past experience that whenever para-military forces are requisitioned, they are deployed in areas dominated by extremists. Now that elections are nearing, the State is bound to get extra contingents. Incidentally, the Chief Minister, N. Chandrababu Naidu, has already demanded that the Centre send at least five battalions of para-military force to the State in view of the ensuing general elections.

In this backdrop, it was but natural for the PW to initiate strategies to deflect police attention and the plan of sending action teams on `seek-and-destroy' mission would effectively engage the police leadership to concentrateon several areas, rather than on specific pockets where naxal presence is felt.

Police officers concede that their `partial victory' in confining naxalite dalams to forest tracts in Adilabad, Nizamabad, Karimangar, Warangal, Khammam and other districts can now come to a naught what with the PW changing strategies when the State is going to polls. In fact, a PW document, in possession of The Hindu speaks of the naxalites' decision to step up `resistance' at least till April. "We should concentrate more on attacking police forces."

"We have to form ATs (action teams) in every district on a temporary basis to operate in non-struggle areas and commit some actions to divert the enemy's attention", the document states. In a similar tone, it also discloses the PW strategy to single out and attack Telugu Desam and Bharatiya Janata Party activists to prevent them from taking up any political activity in villages.

Saturday's attack in Jammikunta town of Karimangar district, where three Telugu Desam Party leaders were shot at, is to be interpreted as the outcome of the latest ploy of the PW leadership. Jammikunta, Huzurabad, Husnabad and their surrounding villages were believed to have been freed from naxal violence since not much of activity was noticed in the last one or two years. But the latest move of the PW action team indicates that the spectre of violence looms large on Telangana districts, as political activity becomes intense in view of the ensuing elections.

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