Maoists form crack teams to counter manpower shortage

Maoists form crack teams to counter manpower shortage
[ 25 Dec, 2006 0032hrs ISTTIMES NEWS NETWORK ]

HYDERABAD: After suffering a series of setbacks in the past few months, the CPI (Maoist) reportedly is concentrating on small action teams with two or three members to implement their plans instead of the usual big dalams.

Sources in the police department say that the Maoist party is facing manpower shortage to continue with its conventional dalams, which usually have 5 to 8 members, particularly after it had lost more than 90 Naxalites in various encounters this year.

In the past 11 months Maoist party's AP state committee secretary Madhav, state committee member Obulesu alias Raghavulu alias Zaheer, Nallamala forest division committee secretary Sudarshan alias Samala Venkatesham were among the four killed in encounters.

Of the total 90 Naxalites killed in the state, about 60 were in the AP State Committee area which has jurisdiction over districts like Prakasam, Guntur, Mahbubnagar, Nalgonda, Kurnool, Anantapur, Kadapa and Chittoor.

Maoists form action teams when there is special task or big action or there is manpower problem. The special task action team has top leaders and experts with more than five members while the small action teams have two to three members.

There are instances where the Maoists have clubbed some dalams due to fewer number of members in a dalam, police sources said.

A few months back, the police sounded high alert after they got a message that a special action team with eight members under the leadership of Ashanna had entered the city to attack VIPs.