The recent Naxal attack on Central Reserve Police Force in Chhattisgarh’s Sukma district claiming the lives of 13 para military forces men including two officers is the biggest attack of this year, thus exposing once again the myopic polices of the Union Government to fight the growing Naxals threats. This time the Naxals had used locals as a human shield, ambushing the CRPF team near a village. The team did not retaliate to avoid civilian casualty but took the hit on its men. Last month, Naxals ambushed a patrol party and hit an Indian Air Force helicopter, which was evacuating security personnel after a gun battle in the dense jungles of Sukma, injuring six CRPF personnel and an IAF commando. The inadequacy of the CRPF to fight Naxals once again surfaced with the recent attacks. Being a law and order force using it for counter-insurgency operations it has proved counter- productive. It is time to evaluate some new strategy to counter the growing Maoists menace. Unless troops and officers are trained and are in the thick of action together, the leadership will continue to suffer. As was evident in the Dantewada incident, the lack of able leadership led to flouting of the Standard Operatining Procedures (SOPs) causing death of 76 troops. Perhaps it is time for the government to contemplate raising an exclusive dedicated force like the Greyhounds in Andhra Pradesh. In the 14th July Chief Ministers meeting with Prime Minister, Home Minister and Finance Minister the Centre had asked the worst affected -Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Jharkhand and West Bengal to set up a Unified Command in the state capitals with Chief Secretaries as their heads. May be it’s time for the government to stop waiting for Naxals to strike again and take an initiative in taking them by surprise instead. While these proposed measures seem appealing, how much they translate into action, remains to be seen. For now, the outcome of the war on Naxalism seems distant, but hope lives on.
