THE OVERNIGHT death toll from a Maoist rebel attack on an Indian police camp in eastern Bengal state climbed to 25 yesterday after more bodies were found at the ambushed site.
Scores of armed Maoist cadres astride motorcycles and in vans stormed the police encampment in Bengal’s restive Midnapore district late on Monday night, killing inmates in a hail of gunfire and detonating landmines which triggered fires before making off into the darkness with looted arms.
Police yesterday recovered eight charred bodies from the camp, 200km west of state capital Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) that included seven policemen from the Eastern Frontier Rifles and a student caught in the crossfire.
Seven other policemen are in hospital with bullet and severe burn injuries following what state police inspector general Surojit Kar Purokayastha said was the “worst-ever” attack by Maoists on security personnel in Bengal.
“The attack by the Maoists on the police camp is another outrageous attempt by the banned organisation to overawe the established authority in the state,” federal interior minister P Chidambaram said.
He said their goal was violence, and that no organisation or group in a democratic republic had the right to take to violence to overpower the established legal authority.
Top Maoist leader Koteswar Rao, also known as Kishenji, claimed his group was behind the attack. In an interview with a local TV channel, he said it was in response to Operation Green Hunt, the federal government’s recently launched anti-Maoist offensive. “We will attack more camps in the area if the offensive against tribals on suspicion of being Maoists is not immediately stopped,” he warned.
Since 2005 over 4,000 people have died in the Maoist insurgency, which began as a peasant uprising in 1967 in eastern India and has spread to 20 of India’s 29 states stretching across a wide swathe in eastern, central and southern parts of the country.
The rebels, claiming to fight for the rights of impoverished tribal people, the poor and victims of state violence and mis-governance, dominate in over 223 of India’s 600-odd administrative districts. In these areas they frequently attack security personnel, trains and government property in dramatic ambushes that involve large numbers of cadres.
In 2006, for instance, some 200 armed Maoist cadres backed by around 800 “sympathisers” launched simultaneous attacks on the jail, police lines and a paramilitary camp at Jehanabad, south of Bihar state’s capital, Patna, killing four persons and injuring five.
In an operation lasting several hours, in which the insurgents virtually took over the panicked township with a population of about 100,000, they freed 341 of the jail’s 600 prisoners and carried off large quantities of weapons and ordnance before vanishing into the countryside.
Their well-organised campaign of violence and intimidation is centred around attacking but not holding territory.
In their areas of influence the Maoists have replaced local government, and they levy taxes, run schools, determine educational curriculums and provide instant justice in kangaroo courts, security officials have said.