India's Ruling Classes step up repression send in reactionary forces to suppress Popular People's Movements

India's Ruling Classes step up repression, send in reactionary
forces to suppress Popular People's Movements.

Mizo battalion in Chhattisgarh to tackle Maoists
India News

Raipur, Oct 4 (IANS) A Mizo battalion trained in guerrilla warfare in hostile terrain reached the Maoist-hit state of Chhattisgarh Wednesday to step up battle against the Leftist extremists, mainly in the 40,000 sq km forested Bastar region.

Personnel of the 2nd Mizoram Indian Reserve Police battalion reached Raipur in a special train. They will be deployed at strategic locations in the interior regions of Bastar during the next week.

"We welcome the Mizo battalion as it was a long pending demand of the Chhattisgarh government which was conceded by the Indian government only last month," said a state home department senior official.

"They are specially trained to deal with guerrillas in hostile terrain. They are much skilled in terms of topography and able to take on rebels who operate on 'hit and run' tactics in the hilly Bastar region mainly in Dantewada, Narayanpur and Bijapur pockets," the official added.

"We have at least 10,000 forces mostly the paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force troopers in Bastar. With the arrival of the Mizo battalion, the war against the rebels mainly in their hideouts is set to be intensified," the state Home Minister Ramvichar Netam told IANS.

Maoists have strong presence in as many as eight of the state's 16 districts. The rebels have compelled forces to be on the defensive during recent years in the districts of Dantewada, Bastar and Kanker districts, the official added.

The militia movement called Salwa Judum (Campaign for Peace) has left at least 50,000 indigenous Bastar tribes homeless and they are now settled in over a dozen government-run heavily guarded relief camps.

Chhattisgarh is among the worst Maoist infested 13 Indian states and officials say at least 282 persons, mostly tribal people in state's southern region, had been killed since January.

Maoists claim to fight for rights of poor peasants and landless labourers and have killed thousands and destroyed government property worth millions in a three-decade old movement that began in 1967 from a West Bengal village.