The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Next round of talks linked to laying of arms: DGP

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Oct 28, 2004

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Next round of talks linked to laying of arms: DGP

By N. Rahul

HYDERABAD, OCT. 27. The Director-General of Police, S.R. Sukumara, has said that the laying down of arms by naxalites will be the key to holding the second round of talks with them by the Government.

He told The Hindu in an interview here on Wednesday that the Government had made its stand clear and was awaiting a response from extremists. Depending upon the Maoists' reply, the Government would take a final decision on holding the next round of talks or, in the extreme, "resume combing".

To a question whether the Government was heading towards a situation where the ceasefire would be violated by taking up "combing", Mr. Sukumara said there was never a ceasefire agreement with the naxalites. It was only a "no first fire agreement". He said that ceasefire agreements were made between much larger bodies at Government to Government level. The present agreement envisaged that the police would not open fire first but if they came under attack, they reserved the right to return fire. However, he did not see a situation leading to such a confrontation.

Cases to be filed

The Government was in favour of continuing the peaceful atmosphere prevailing in the State but it was the naxalites who vitiated it by threatening pattadars and occupying their lands.

The DGP said the Superintendents of Police in the districts had been asked to collect complaints about forcible occupation of lands at the behest of naxalites. They would register cases and initiate follow-up action more as a measure of "deterrence" than harassing villagers.

The complaints would be taken from pattadars if they were private lands and the departments concerned in the case of Government lands. He said felling of hundreds of trees at the instigation of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) had come to notice in Chintapalli and Gudemkotha Veedhi forest of Visakhapatnam and parts of Warangal districts.

The forest was destroyed for "podu" cultivation as sought by the tribals.

Mr. Sukumara saw a dangerous trend from the latest developments -- clear defiance of the Government and land rendered fallow as both owners and the so-called people to whom the holdings were transferred kept away from cultivation.

The Government was worried and wanted to arrest the trend.

The DGP, however, did not see the situation as alarming as in the liberal period of the Channa Reddy Government when the landlords shifted to towns and cities in the wake of occupation of lands en masse.

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