RAIPUR: During the past couple of weeks, a good many disenchanted cadres of the armed wing of CPI (Maoist) battalion no-1 of People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA) have relinquished the banned organisation in south Chhattisgarh and are returning to their respective villages but avoided to surrender before the police.
The Maoist surrender this year had not been so reassuring for the state police as it had been during the past five years. Till June this year only 80 have surrendered in Chhattisgarh while in 2017, 2018 and 2019 the official records show 366, 465 and 315 laid down arms before the forces.
The Chhattisgarh police through its intelligence network gathered the information of around two dozen such cadres who have recently quit the CPI (Maoist).
“During the last couple of weeks, lot of Maoists cadres are absconding from their PLGA battalion no-1, platoon company and going back to their villages. The police are trying to trace them out by talking to the family members and the villagers. We have appealed the local inhabitants to persuade these naxals who gave up the Maoist ideology to surrender and seek the benefits from the surrender and rehabilitation policy. We pledged for their security and other essential requirements”, said Sunderraj P, Bastar range inspector general of police.
According to the guerrilla warfare experts those who returned perhaps might not be wishing to be identified or targeted by the Maoists in future and so avoided to surrender before the police.
The cadres who are returning have spent over a decade with the Maoist organisation. The police have inputs about two dozen who have returned but the officials believe the figure could be higher.
“We are maintaining a close observation. As per our information the Maoist leaders are searching for them and inquiring about their whereabouts in different villages, since they had absconded. The most plausible reason for their return appears to their growing apprehension at having no good future to continue being associated with the Maoist movement,” the IG said.
However for the Bastar police, it’s a positive development if the cadres who cherished or got associated with the Maoist ideology for long now find the ideals of the organisation as “hollow”.