If the media can time and again go and do filming in the Maoist heartland, why can the CAPF not infiltrate the Maoists rank and file, operate alongside and provide time intelligence?

In the recent past, the Home Minister’s statement appeared in the media that the Maoist threat is far greater than the terrorist threat. Apparently, this was in response to a question from the media. The question by itself is absurd. How do you classify which is a bigger threat? Is it based on number of casualties inflicted on security forces and civilians? Can you predict how many casualties will be inflicted next? For example, the Sarin Gas attack on Tokyo Subway in March 1995 by members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult released gas on several lines of the Tokyo Metro, killing 13, severely injuring 50 and causing temporary loss of vision to some 1,000 people. The cult actually had two remote controlled helicopters and had even smuggled in a Russian Mi-8 helicopter part by part. Had they used aerial spraying, they had enough Sarin to kill ‘one million people’.

There is little meaning in wasting time on questions like this especially when the Prime Minister has been stating for the past six years that the Maoists threat is the biggest threat to our security. The vital question we should be asking is what we are doing to combat these threats.

As per media hundreds of Police and Central Armed Police Force (CAPF) battalions are being raised but what of their equipping, arming and most importantly, training? These issues are more troublesome when you see the state of the existing battalions, particularly in terms of modernisation, training, intelligence and the will to strike. Note the media coverage including video clips of the training and training camps of the Maoists, reports of they being trained now by ULFA even as the latter holds talks with the Centre. Why can we not strike these camps? Or is it a ‘state subject’ in which the Centre has no role. When will we realise that the Maoist problem has been permitted to flourish because it continued to be viewed as a ‘state subject’ and that too predominantly as a ‘law and order’ problem even when the Prime Minister was labeling it the biggest threat? On the other hand, if the Centre has indeed taken charge, then why the insurgent training camps can’t be tracked and struck? If the media can time and again go and do filming in the Maoist heartland, why can the CAPF not infiltrate the Maoists rank and file, operate alongside and provide time intelligence? If the CAPF do not have the confidence, then why not employ detachments of the National Security Guard (NSG)? While 52 Special Action Group (SAG) of the NSG specialises in antihijack operations, 51 SAG is equipped and trained for precisely such tasks. So is the Special Groups (SG) of the Special Frontier Force (SFF).

The Centre should have taken charge of anti-Maoist operations long back. There is little sense in the States boasting of Special Police Units like Grey Hounds, Force One and the like, and the Centre toasting ‘highly trained elite units’ (that is how the media describe them) if the right force cannot be organised for meaningful intelligence-cum-psychological operations.

We could learn from Bhutan routing the ULFA and Bodos, striking their very training camps and infrastructure to rout them out of Bhutanese territory. Incidentally, the Home Ministry’s official list of some 29 odd terrorist organisations operating in India does not even mention the Garo National Army of Meghalaya that the security forces have been battling for past few years now. Additionally, what a terrible shame that India is unable to lift the siege on its hapless population in Manipur!

The views expressed herein are the personal views of the author.