To deal with Operation Green Hunt and to rejuvenate the revolutionary movement, Maoist leaders are now focussing on protecting their guerrilla fighters, especially those in senior ranks, and on more offensives similar to the Dantewada attack that killed 76 CRPF personnel.
The continuous success of the security forces, which either killed or arrested top Maoist leaders, finds a special mention in a statement issued by the Central Committee of the CPI (Maoist) on Thursday to mark the sixth anniversary of the outfit. It fell on September 21, but the statement was released later.
The statement issued by Central Committee spokesman Abhay points to the serious losses the rebels have suffered. “From May 2009 to July 2010, eight topmost comrades, including Polit Bureau members and beloved leader Azad, and 10 State-level comrades had either been caught and killed by the enemy or put behind bars.” Abhay succeeded Azad, who was killed in an encounter with the Andhra Pradesh police in Adilabad on July 2 this year.
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Assessing the progress of the revolutionary movement in India, Abhay said that despite the movement suffering ‘setbacks' in Andhra Pradesh and north Chhattisgarh and heavy losses in north Orissa, it had notched many successes elsewhere. The biggest loss was the death of Azad “who had been rendering multi-faceted services most efficiently in many fields.” But he conceded that the losses since May 2009 had been more serious.
Abhay's premise is that the multi-pronged offensive strategy adopted for Operation Green Hunt was fashioned after the ‘War on Terror' launched by the United States. The campaign was more focussed on “our strong rural areas, guerrilla zones, especially Dandakaranya, Jharkhand-Bihar, Lalgarh border areas of Jharkhand-Orissa, Andhra-Orissa and Telangana-Chhattisgarh.”
Despite the reverses, he said, the revolutionaries managed to inflict serious losses on the security forces at Singanamadugu and Mukaram (Dantewada) in Chhattisgarh; Laheri in Maharashtra; Sankrel and Silda in West Bengal; Gumla, Vishnupur and Lateshar in Jharkhand; Gaya and Tandwa Bazaar in Bihar; and Potakal and Baipharguda in Orissa. The successful strikes, he claimed, had “broken down the initiative of the enemy.”
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The struggles in Kalinganagar, Singur and Nandigram had the desired impact on the ruling classes, he said, and the Lalgarh and Narayanpatna struggles had taken place on a higher scale.
In this background, the Maoist party called for a broad united front of all resistance struggles in the country.