Centre, Maoists set for showdown

Left-wing rebels demand release of their leaders

The left-wing rebels have threatened to unleash a fresh wave of attacks if the government does not release their senior leaders within three days.

The arrest of Telugu Deepak, a top aide of Maoist military wing head Koteswara Rao alias Kishenji, on Tuesday in Kolkatta, has further flared up the issue.

“They have given three days to release Telugu Deepak and others as a pre-condition for talks”, sources in the home ministry told Deccan Herald.  

In last September, Maoist ideologue Kobad Ghandy was arrested in Delhi. Also, Operation Green Hunt, the Centrally-sponsored drive against the Maoists is on in Naxal-affected states, irrespective of the tentative peace offers from both the sides.

In fact, the Union Home Ministry has described the Maoists’ offer of talks as “bizarre” as it was followed by an attack on a joint patrol party of the West Bengal police and the Central Reserve Police Force on February 22. Union Home Minister P Chidambaram  said his own offer of talks that preceded the peace proposal from the Naxals elicited no response from their leadership.

‘They want to overthrow Indian govt’

Maoists want to overthrow the Indian state by 2050, Home Secretary G K Pillai said on Friday, report agencies from New Delhi. He also admitted that it would take at least 7 to 10 years before states affected by the left-wing insurgency are able to crush the entrenched rebels and re-assert their authority. The Maoists are also trying to organise their cadres, he said, adding, that the armed cadres of 10,000 were heavily motivated and trained and admitted that the personnel drawn from the paramilitary and state police forces had not been able to hit at even 5 per cent of the armed cadres. “We have a long bloody war ahead,” admitted Pillai, at a gathering at the Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses here.