Maoist expansion plan targets poor NE villages

Adhering to Mao Tse-Tung’s guerrilla warfare style of surrounding urban centres from the countryside, Communist Party of India (Maoist) has unleashed a long-term grand plan of expansion. Their target is the restive northeast where they plan to build their presence steadily in villages.

Adhering to Mao Tse-Tung’s guerrilla warfare style of surrounding urban centres from the countryside, Communist Party of India (Maoist) has unleashed a long-term grand plan of expansion. Their target is the restive northeast where they plan to build their presence steadily in villages.

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“The plan is five-pronged and is centred on building up support networks in the villages of Assam and Tripura as of now. Then it will move up to the block level, district level and then the urban centres,” Dr L Bishnoi, IGP, (Central Western Region), Assam Police told HT.

Based on the interrogation of several CPI (Maoist) central committee members including Aklanta Rabha, the police officer said: “Rabha, who was arrested on April 25, has confessed that one of their initial efforts comprises setting up a training camp in the Arunachal jungles to train and raise a peoples’ guerrilla army.”

On Thursday, police nabbed Anukul Naskar alias Paresh Da, a central committee member from Guwahati. His arrest came two weeks after the arrest of another central committee member, Maheshji, who was a key operative in Maoist operations in NE.

In a meeting in Jharkhand held in 2012-end, the top Maoist leadership had asked Rabha to develop close relationships with other insurgent groups in the NE and coordinate with them to form an umbrella outfit comprising Maoists and the region’s leading insurgent groups.

An Assam Police task force report on the growing Maoist problem in the state has named 181 full-time cadres in the state backed by hundreds of sympathisers and supporters.

The Maoists are also anxious to ramp up a strong presence in the NE to ensure a route for regular weapons’ supply.