Rourkela Police on red alert ahead of Jharkhand elections

Ahead of the elections in Jharkhand, Maoist cadres have stepped up their activities and mounted a propaganda campaign.
Bihar-Jharkhand Special Area Committee of the CPI (Maoist) has mounted a propaganda campaign through posters and banners.
Bihar-Jharkhand Special Area Committee of the CPI (Maoist) has mounted a propaganda campaign through posters and banners.

ROURKELA: Rourkela police are on high alert along Odisha-Jharkhand border with the outlawed CPI (Maoist) calling for boycott of Assembly elections in the neighbouring state.

Ahead of the elections in Jharkhand, Maoist cadres have stepped up their activities and mounted a propaganda campaign.

West Singhbhum and Simdega districts, which share vast forest border with Sundargarh in Odisha, will go to polls on December 7.

Sources said Bihar-Jharkhand Special Area Committee of the CPI (Maoist) has mounted a propaganda campaign through posters and banners.

Apart from the poll boycott call, the propaganda materials exhort workers, farmers and the oppressed to form a strategic combined alliance, end rule by Brahminical and Hindu fascists and stop police atrocities. Security forces are also wary of the banned outfit’s People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA) Week starting from December 2.

The bordering areas of Sundargarh district, manned by Rourkela police, used to be a hotbed of Maoist activities originating from Saranda forest in West Singhbhum which, not more than seven years back, was home to the Eastern Regional Bureau of the banned outfit.

However, amid sustained police efforts on both sides of the border, Maoist activities were considerably contained.
Incidentally, the Maoists, who are on the run in recent years, have changed their strategy and are moving in small groups and occasionally using the forests under Bisra police limits and Bonai sub-division on the Sundargarh side of the border as hideouts.

Jharkhand police apprehend the possibility of infiltration of Maoists from other parts of Odisha through the porous border of Sundargarh connecting Saranda forest.

West Singhbhum SP Indrajit Mahata said adequate security forces and measures have been put in place for smooth conduct of the polls.

“We are fully prepared and also in touch with Rourkela police to check any possible Maoist activities,” he said. Police DIG (Western Range) Kavita Jalan and Rourkela SP K Shiva Subramani refrained from commenting. 
 

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