In a major breakthrough, the security forces have extracted sensitive information relating to command structure, financing pattern, armoury, VVIP targets and forward planning of Maoists through sustained interrogation of a high-ranking member of the Politburo, the supreme decision making body of the CPI (Maoist).Misir Besra, who is also in-charge of the intelligence unit and eastern regional command of the outlawed outfit and a permanent member of its nine-member central military commission, was arrested late last month from Giridih district of Jharkhand. He also heads the outfit's "central instructors team" (CIT) and is a member of the editorial board of Awam-e-Jung, the mouthpiece of the outfit.
According to the interrogation report, (which is in possession of The Pioneer) the VIP targets identified by the CPI (Maoist) include top politicians and Indian Police Service (IPS) officers who have acted tough against Left-wing extremism in various States, particularly from Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh. The "central action team" of the outfit has tasked its "urban combat teams" to eliminate these high-profile targets.
The list of the targets identified by the "central military commission" (CMC) of the outfit includes Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh, former Chief Minister of Jharkhand Babulal Marandi, former Home Minister of Jharkhand Sudesh Mahto and Congress leader Mahendra Karma who is heading Salwa Judum in Chhattisgarh.
This hit list also includes former Director General of Police of Andhra Pradesh HJ Dora and Deputy Inspector General Anil Palta, currently deputed to the Central Bureau of Investigation in Kolkata. Maoists have to their credit killing of Sunil Mahto, MP of East Singhbhum and a failed bid on former Jharkhand Chief Minister Babulal Marandi and former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Janardhan Reddy. Maoists had last year also eliminated son of Marandi.
The weapons composition of the outfit includes over a dozen light machine guns (LMGs), 75 AK-47 rifles, about 300 self-loading rifles (SLRs), over 1,800 .303 rifles, about 200 short-range weapons, about 120 .12 bore rifles and 20 mortar launchers, according to the 26-page interrogation report.
Besra (48) also revealed that the outfit has proposed to form base areas in Dandkaranya forests of Chhattisgarh comprising North and South Bastar and Maad, surrounding areas of Saranda, Palamau and East Singhbhum districts of Jharkhand, Mayurbhanj, Sambalpur and Deogarh in Orissa, Midnapore and Purulia in West Bengal and Koyal-Kaimur in Bihar.
The CMC has allocated Rs 60 crore for two years, including a maximum Rs 42 crore for arms and ammunition and logistics, Rs 10 crore for central technical committee (responsible for production of weapons), Rs 5 crore for communication, Rs 2 crore for intelligence gathering and Rs 1 crore for technical work. The central technical team has proposed to form a unit to manufacture gelatin slurry and has requisitioned a chemist and an electronics engineer from the outfit's northern regional bureau.
The CMC has established contacts in Assam for procurement of arms and ammunition and is getting supplies of hand grenades from West Bengal. Besra further revealed plans of targeting police stations in the urban areas of Jharkhand as the same in the rural areas have been well fortified by the administration.
The interrogation of Besra also revealed that the 9th Congress of the CPI (Maoist) was held in the forests of Bheemband in Bihar for 10 days in January 2007. The intelligence agencies had failed to establish the location of the area where the 9th Congress was held after a gap of over 30 years and attended by 100 hardcore delegates.
Delegates of the outfit from Bihar, Jharkhand, Delhi, Panjab, Haryana, Orissa, West Bengal, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and United Kingdom had attended the secretly held 9th Congress, according to the interrogation report.
The Maoists hold Raman Singh responsible for Salwa Judum movement in Chhattisgarh and recruitment of local people as SPOs and other anti-Maoist operations in the State.
Marandi as Chief Minister of Jharkhand had launched anti-Maoist campaign in the State and the police force had registered significant success against the militants during his tenure. Maoists hold him responsible for the alleged misuse of POTA against its cadre.
Sudesh Mahto was also a Minister for road construction and had initiated and completed a number of road projects in the Maoist strongholds. When he became the Home Minister of the State, he recruited locals as Special Police Officers for the counter Maoist offensive. The decision to recruit SPOs was taken by him after the local people at Lango in Jamshedpur had lynched nine Maoists. He did not allow the Maoists to gain a foothold in his home constituency of Silli in Ranchi district.
Palta was superintendent of police (SP) of Palamau in Jharkhand and had busted Maoist bunkers in the district. He had also successfully choked the funding channels of the outfit in the State. Palta as SP of Bokaro had also smashed the training camp of the outfit at Jhumra hills, considered a Maoist stronghold.
The Intelligence Bureau has already warned that VVIPs/ VIPs figure high on the agenda of Maoists.
Apart from the CPI (Maoist), there 33 other outfits spreading ultra-Left terror over vast areas of Indian mainland and pose the biggest threat to internal security.