Security forces kill 14 Maoist rebels in Odisha

Agencies/Bhubaneswar

Security forces killed 14 Maoists in a firefight in the eastern of Odisha yesterday, police said, marking the latest bloodshed in a long conflict in which the rebels have been battling to overthrow the government.

It was the single biggest rebel death toll in Odisha from one incident and came amid an intense anti-Maoist campaign in the area conducted over the past month, police said.

“Fourteen rebels, including one woman cadre, were killed. We are awaiting further information,” Orissa Director General of Police Prakash Mishra said.

There were no immediate reports of casualties among security forces, Mishra added.

The Maoists have grown from a rag-tag band of ideologues into a potent insurgent force, creating a so-called “Red Corridor” that stretches throughout central and eastern India.

Yesterday’s battle occurred in the Padia forest area of the mineral-rich state some 650km southwest of state capital Bhubaneswar.

The security forces, acting on a tip-off, were conducting a sweep of the area for rebels when they came across the Maoist camp, police said, adding authorities now were looking for more insurgents in the area.

The area where the battle took place was close to rebel-hit Chhattisgarh state. Police said a cache of explosives, arms and ammunition and Maoist literature was seized from the camp site.

Local media reported the rebel group camping in the forest was suspected of involvement in a May 25 ambush by Maoists of a convoy of Congress leaders in Chhattisgarh.

That attack in a remote tribal belt killed some 24 people, including 12 local Congress leaders and supporters.

Earlier in the week, the rebels gunned down a village head in Odisha’s Malkangiri district suspecting him to be a police informer.

According to reports, the incident took place in a remote village of Padia where a group of heavily armed rebels shot the village head.

 “A group of people equipped with arms came and said that the village head was giving information to the police about their activities. Four of them dragged him to the end of the village, and later we heard the sound of firing. When we reached there, we found him dead,” said Budhu, a villager.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has described the Maoists as the country’s most serious internal security threat and there are frequent outbreaks of violence in areas in which the rebels are present.

Maoist rebels have been fighting in the forests and rural areas for what they say are the rights of tribal people, who have some of India’s highest rates of illiteracy and poverty, and landless farmers for decades.

They demand land and jobs for the poor, and want to establish a communist society by toppling what they call India’s “semi-colonial, semi-feudal” form of rule. The revolt is believed to have cost tens of thousands of lives.

The Maoists are believed to be present in at least 20 states but are most active in Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Bihar, Jharkhand and Maharashtra, occupying thousands of sq km of land.

Critics believe attempts to end the revolt through security offensives are doomed to fail, saying the real solution is better governance and development.