Maoists Vs Terrorists: who is a bigger threat.

The Maoists have clearly caught the entire Indian establishment on the wrong foot. We, the people, were under the impression that terrorism originating from Pakistan was a bigger threat to the nation, but naxalism was something which our leadership is capable of handling with deployment of the right resources. But the developments of the last few weeks have left the common man confused. 75 CRPF men were massacred in cold blood. This was followed by the civilian bus blow up yesterday, in which the number of deaths could be anywhere between 65 to 75. The front page article covering this incident in ‘The Hindu’ quotes a police official as saying, ”IEDs ( Improvised Explosive Devices) are like Maosts’ fast food.A mine can be planted(by them) in as little as 15 minutes”. This is a very scary statement. Leaves us to imagine as to what more are these guys capable of.

In a latest opinion poll by NDTV, 69% of the respondents felt the Government should use the Armed Forces to fight the naxalites. But in a recent discussion on Governments’ naxalite strategy, Mahendra Kumawat, former Special Secretary( internal security) in home ministry endorsed the government stand of not deploying the Army against the Maoists. The reason being the military not trained for the terrain and the kind of guerilla warfare the naxals engage in. Another interesting statement by D N mithra, a serving IPS officer in the same forum was - “ Army is too big a hammer to hit the Maoists”. These experts must definitely be right in their opinions. It is not be misunderstood as advocating use of military, but question that arises in one’s mind is – do we then have right machinery to hit back at the Maoists?. If the recent media reports coming out of Chhattisgarh are to be believed we only have ‘non-motivated’ CRPF battalions deployed in the affected areas, which did not follow the right protocols thus leading to the unfortunate mass execution. If that is the case, we are much better off in dealing with cross border terrorism, where we have resources such as the armed forces, RAW, NIA, ATS, STF and what not. What they have achieved is of course a moot point.

Union HRD Minister Kapil Sibal is said to have hailed the Home Minister and commented that the people felt the country’s security is in safe hands. This is definitely not agreeable. The criticism is not directed at the present Home Ministry alone, but at all those gate keepers we have had in the last decade and a half. If the Naxals have become experts in deploying IEDs, if they have planted landmines in large areas of forest lands, if they can successfully strategize to mass annihilate our security forces; then what was our Home Ministry & the Governments of the affected states doing when the naxals were accumulating these capabilities. Clearly they could not have acquired these competences overnight. Understandably we have let these anti-national elements gain strength, right under our nose as opposed to Islamic terrorism, which grew roots on the other side of the border. All we can hope now is to find the right “Hammer” before we end up in Srilanka-like situation where a rebel minority group grew in strength to wage a full fledged war against the Government for years and to hold the entire country’s development to ransom