RAIPUR: In a unique initiative, the Chhattisgarh Police in Dantewada is taking the fight against the left-wing extremism to a different level. The cops are now are releasing the profiles of hardcore Naxals in public domain in an attempt to seek their ‘Ghar Wapsi’.
Spelled out in a local Gondi dialect, the campaign is cited as ‘Loan Varatu’ (Return to your home).
A team led by Dantewada district police chief Abhishek Pallava carried out a thorough research into the available records on Maoist cadres and documented it identifying the most wanted cadres of the outlawed CPI (Maoist) with their addresses, the position they hold, the rewards they carry and the weapons they posses. Their details are to be pasted in panchayat building and other public places besides sharing with the local elected representatives.
“Hardcore Maoists from Dantewada are deployed in other districts, similarly from other places or even adjoining states, the rebels have come to our district and engaged with the local members. Accordingly, we prepared two separate booklets (documents) carrying relevant information about them. They are like a ‘Pravasi Naxali” (Migrant Maoists) on the move. Many of their families and the tribal settlements might not even know that the familiar faces of their villages have joined the Maoist group. So such villagers working in any Maoist hierarchy would no longer remain anonymous”, the doctor-turned-IPS officer of 2013 batch told The New Indian Express.
To start with, the programme has been launched from Chikpal village. As per the Dantewada police, there are around 30 villages in the district with each having over 5 hardcore Naxals.
“We are first targeting these villages. From the high-focused rural hamlets for which the data would initially be released, we will then move to those places inhabited by the lesser number of Maoists carrying rewards on their head”, Pallava said.
The booklets would be handed over to the sarpanch of gram panchayat for their information.
Many a time when their bodies (after the encounter) brought to the respective villages, the tribals stand up and protest against the police citing the innocents have been killed by the forces. “The Loan Varatu programme will bring in the transparency in the anti-Maoist operations and clear the allegations on fake encounter charges the police had to face in the virtual war zone”, the SP averred.
The district police are in the process of preparing lists of hardcore Maoists for every village. So, if the local people believe, anyone listed is an innocent villager and not Maoist, they can then approach the police and facilitate their surrender.
In Dantewada, there are 236 gram panchayats and the police believe the hardcore Maoists are based in around 80-90 villages.
Under the programme, the police will appeal such Maoists and their families to relinquish Maoist organisation, get benefits from the surrender and rehabilitation policy of the state to live a life of dignity.