Pankaj Singh
On the very first day of the martyrdom week of Naxalites, security forces achieved significant success against them in the Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh.
According to Dantewada police officials, 11 Maoists, including Rambati Barse, a woman Maoist operating under the Malangir Area Committee of Maoists, on whom a reward of one lakh was announced, have surrendered to the security forces.
According to police sources, these Maoists are accused of being involved in several heinous activities, including looting Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), firing on police teams and setting vehicles on fire during the 2013 assembly elections.
Just last week, four other Naxal terrorists had surrendered in the Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh.
According to the police, four Naxalites, including eminent woman Naxal Lalita Tamo, surrendered in the Kirandul police station area of Dantewada. Apart from Lalita, the other three terrorists have been identified as Motu Markam, Baman Ram Kunjam, and Bima Markam.
Surrendered Maoists played an active role in the demolition of the Cholnar bridge in 2015.
Significantly, seven soldiers lost their lives in that terrorist attack. Apart from this, Naxalites Lalita and Bhima are also accused of damaging the security forces' anti-land mines vehicle by blasting the IED near Cholnar village. Five security personnel of CRPF were martyred.
Dantewada Superintendent of Police Dr Abhishek Pallav said that a reward of Rs 10,000 each was already announced on the surrendered Maoists. He further informed that all these Maoists were active under the Malangir Area Committee of Darbha Division. The surrendered Naxalites said that fed up with the hollow ideology of the organization, they have returned to the mainstream of the society under the Lone Varatu campaign.
“He further informed that in the last 11 months, the Lone Varatu campaign is being run for the homecoming of the Maoists active in the district. Under this special campaign, by pasting the names of active Maoists of the concerned area in the police station camps and gram panchayats, they are being requested to leave the path of violence and join the mainstream of society. 397 Maoists, including 103 rewarded Maoists, have surrendered under this campaign, informed Dantewada SP.”
Significantly, there has been a considerable surge in the number of Maoists who surrendered under the Lone Varatu campaign in recent days. If police sources are to be believed, the surge is being seen because of the fear of coronavirus infection and discrimination in treatment.
However, the swift operation being carried out by the security forces in the monsoon season can also be an aspect of this.
In fact, after the recent Bijapur attack, the search operations of the security forces against the Maoists have intensified. While many Maoists are being killed, the pressure on the Naxalites to surrender is also increasing.
It should be noted that Maoist attacks have subsided in recent years. According to the report presented by the government in Parliament in 2018, where Naxalites carried out 833 Naxal incidents, in 2019-20 this number was 670 and 665, respectively. In the year 2018, where Red Terror killed 246 people in 2019 and 20; this number was 202 and 183, respectively. However, a lot still needs to be done to uproot the Red Terror from the Indian mainland.
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