Communist Party of India (Maoist)

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The Communist Party of India (Maoist) is an underground Maoist political party in India. It was founded on September 21, 2004, through the merger of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) People's War and the Maoist Communist Centre of India. The merger was announced to the public on October 14 the same year. In the merger a provisional central committee was constituted, with PW leader Ganapati as General Secretary. The CPI (Maoist) are often referred to as Naxalites in reference to the Naxalbari insurrection by radical Maoists in West Bengal in 1967.

1 Ideology
2 Organization
3 Status
4 Recent activities
5 International connections
6 References
7 External links

[edit] Ideology

The Communist Party of India (Maoist) is conducting 'people's war', a strategical line developed by Mao Zedong during the phase of guerrilla warfare of the Communist Party of China. Currently it has effective control over some regions of Jharkhand and Andhra Pradesh as well as presence in Bihar and the tribal-dominated areas in the borderlands of Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, West Bengal and Orissa. The CPI(Maoist) aims to consolidate its power in this area and establish a Compact Revolutionary Zone from which to advance the people's war in other parts of India.

[edit] Organization

The military wings of the respective organisations, People's Liberation Guerrilla Army (military wing of MCCI) and People's Guerrilla Army (military wing of PW), were also merged. The name of the unified military organisation is People's Liberation Guerrilla Army. P.V. Ramana, of the Observer Research Foundation in Delhi estimates the Naxilites' current strength at 9,000 -10,000 armed fighters, with access to about 6,500 firearms.^[1] The Asian Center for Human Rights alleges that the Maoists recruit child soldiers.[5]

[edit] Status

The party is regarded by some as a "left-wing extremist entity" and a terrorist outfit and several of their members have been arrested by the Indian Government under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) ^[2]^[3]. The group is officially banned by the State Governments of Orissa^[4], Chattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh, among others. The party has protested these bans.^[5] They are regarded as a serious security threat and the Indian government is taking countermeasures, pulling the affected states together to coordinate their response. It says it will combine improved policing with socio-economic measures to defuse grievances that fuel the Maoist cause.[6] In many states, private armies and vigilante groups, often government-sponsored, have sprung up to counter the Maoists. These have also forcibly recruited villagers against the Maoists.[7] Special insurance provisions have been made by the Indian government for paramilitary forces stationed in regions affected by the militant Maoists.[8]

[edit] Recent activities

On March 15, 2007 an attack happened in the rebel stronghold area of Dantewada, in Chhattisgarh state. Fifty-four persons, including 15 personnel of the Chhattishgarh Armed Force, were killed in an offensive by 300 to 350 CPI (Maoist) cadres on a police base camp in the Bastar region in the early hours of Thursday. The remaining victims were tribal youths of Salwa Judum, designated as Special Police Officers (SPOs) and roped in to combat the Maoists. Eleven person were injured. The attack, which lasted nearly two-and-a-half hours, was spearheaded by the "State Military Commission (Maoist)", consisting of about 100 armed naxalites.^[6]

On March 6, 2007 the CPI (Maoist) reportedly claimed responsibility for the Mahato assassination, but JMM members of the Jharkhand state cabinet, including the Chief Minister, subsequently announced that a state police investigation is under way into the authenticity of this claim. Police reportedly believe that political rivals of Mahato, including organized criminal groups, may have been behind the assassination.[9]

On March 5, 2007, Maoist shot dead a local Congress leader (Prakash, a member of the local Mandal Praja Parishad (MPP)) in Andhra Pradesh while he was inspecting a road construction project in Mahabubnagar district. ^[7]

On March 4, 2007, Maoist shot dead a member of the parliament Sunil Mahato of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) party from Jharkhand state.^[8]

On December 2, 2006, the BBC reported that at least 14 Indian policemen have been killed by Maoists in a landmine ambush near the town of Bokaro, 80 miles from Ranchi, the capital of the State of Jharkhand.^[9]

On October 18, 2006, women belonging to the Maoist guerrilla force blasted four government buildings in the Bastar region of Chhattisgarh. On the day before, over a dozen armed cadres of the group, with support from male colleagues, blocked traffic on the Antagarh-Koylibera Road in the Kanker district, near the city of Raipur. They also detonated explosives inside four buildings, including two schools, in Kanker[10]. This incident occurred two days after a major leader of the party's operations in Orissa and Andhra Pradesh, Kone Kedandam, surrendered to authorities in the town of Srikakulam.[11]

On July 16, 2006, the Maoists attacked a relief camp in the Dantewada district where several villagers were kidnapped. The death toll was 29.^[10]

On February 28, 2006, the Maoists attacked several anti-Maoist protesters in Erraboru village in Chhattisgarh using landmines, killing 25 people.^[11]

On 13 November 2005, CPI (Maoist) fighters stunned authorities by attacking Jehanabad in Bihar, freeing 250 captured comrades and taking twenty imprisoned right wing paramilitaries captive, executing their leader. They also detonated several bombs in the town ^[12]. A prison guard was also reported killed.

In August 2005, Maoists kidnapped from the Dantewada district of the state of Chhattisgarh.This fiollows violent incidents in 2004 in the same region when 50 policemen and about 300 villagers were killed in the Dantewada district and over 50,000 villagers were staying in relief camps out of fear from Maoists.^[13]

In February 2005 the CPI (Maoist) killed 7 policemen, a civilian and injured many more during a mass attack on a school building in Venkatammanahalli village, Pavgada, Tumkur, Karnataka.^[14]^[15] On August 17, 2005, the government of Andhra Pradesh outlawed the Communist Party of India (Maoist) and various mass organizations close to it, and began to arrest suspected members and sympathizers days afterwards. The arrested included former emissaries at the peace talks of 2004.