Press Release from REVOLUTIONARY DEMOCRATIC FRONT (RDF)
Condemn the cold blooded killing of ten Maoist cadres in a joint covert operation by the police and TPC in Chatra, Jharkhand!
Release the twenty persons abducted by TPC immediately and without harm!
Constitute a judicial enquiry into the killing and punish the perpetrators!
29 March 2013
The media has reported the claim made by the Jharkhand police that
ten CPI (Maoist) cadres were gunned down by the Tritiya Prastuti
Committee (TPC) during a “fierce gun battle” that started in the
afternoon of 27 March 2013 and continued till the next morning in the
Lakarbandha forests in Chatra district of Jharkhand, which falls under
Kunda police station limits. Around 25 other Maoists have been abducted
after the battle as per media reports. Lalesh Yadav alias Prashant,
Secretary of the Bihar Jharkhand North Chhattisgarh Special Area
Committee of CPI (Maoist), Jaikumar Yadav, Platoon Commander, Dharmendra
Yadav alias Biru, Sub-Zonal Commander of Chatra Palamu, and Prafulla
Yadav, Sub-Zonal Commander of Koleswari are reported to be among the
dead.
According to the police version of the incident, it had received
information about an ongoing gun battle between the CPI (Maoist) cadres
and TPC members in the evening of 27 March. Around a hundred armed men
of CoBRA battalion of the CRPF and District Armed Police left at 10pm on
the same evening, who reached the site of the encounter at 3am in the
morning. The paramilitary and police forces engaged in a gunfight from 3
to 4 am in which they fired 80 to 90 rounds of bullets. By daybreak,
the police claims, the belligerent CPI(Maoist) and TPC cadres retreated
from the spot. During a search of the area, the police is said to have
recovered ten bodies of CPI (Maoist) members, nine in uniform, along
with seven weapons, cane bombs, empty cartridges and Maoist literature
from the encounter site. Though the police have said that two TPC
members died as well, the bodies of the supposedly dead TPC members have
not been recovered by the police.
CPI(Maoist), however, has refuted the police story. A spokesperson of
the party in his telephonic statement to the PUCL Jharkhand told that
there was no encounter or gun battle as claimed by the police. According
to him, it was a joint operation planned and executed by the central
paramilitary forces and state police in collusion with the TPC. The
state armed forces and the TPC used covert operatives to mix poison in
the food served to the Maoists. When they were in an unconscious state
after consuming the poisoned food, their arms were first taken away and
then were selectively killed by the TPC and the armed forces. The rest
of the 20 to 25 Maoists were later abducted and taken away by the TPC
men. The spokesperson also confirmed that the four leaders named by the
media are among the dead. The spokesperson has also confirmed that there
were 200 armed personnel in the operation from TPC and paramilitary and
Jharkhand police.
The facts and circumstances of the incident, the modus operandi of
the state’s armed forces and the history of the notorious TPC in
Jharkhand indeed point strongly towards a covert operation, a staged
‘encounter’ and cold blooded murder of the ten Maoists. It is difficult
to believe that ten members in a large team of 30 odd armed Maoists fell
in a gun battle while none of the TPC goons or the armed forces
engaging them survived without any casualty. The police itself have
admitted that none of their troops sustained even injuries. The claim by
the police that two TPC members were killed and one was injured in the
‘encounter’ is highly doubtful, given the fact that the police did not
recover the bodies of the TPC members. In spite of the contrary claims
by the government, the collusion between the Jharkhand police, the
paramilitary forces and the TPC in conducting operations against the
Maoists is well known. Therefore, it can be assumed that the state’s
armed forces had full knowledge of the Maoist team’s presence in
Lakarbandha forest, and that they directed and participated in this
dastardly covert operation from the beginning to the end. TPC as a
mercenary vigilante gang propped up by the government was one of the
instruments in executing this extrajudicial killing.
This is not the first time that covert and deceptive means of
poisoning was used by the Indian state to eliminate Maoist leaders and
cadres by planting moles and informers. Three Central Committee members
of the erstwhile CPI(ML) Peoples’ War – Shyam, Mahesh and Murli – were
first poisoned by using an informer in Bangalore, abducted and flown to
Andhra Pradesh, tortured and later shot dead in December 1999. Then the
police floated the story that the three were killed in an ‘encounter’ in
Karimnagar district of AP. A villager residing near the so-called
encounter site was also picked up and killed by the police and shown as a
squad member to bolster their Goebblesian lie. The demand by the civil
rights organisations and democratic forces for a judicial enquiry into
the incident was declined by the government. The guilty police officers
and their political bosses are yet to be brought to book for this
fascist murder, and indeed enjoy full state protection.
Similarly, Chhattisgarh police claimed to have killed 14 members of a
Maoist squad in Bijapur district on 18 March 2008 after a ‘fierce
encounter’, even though not a single policeman was even injured as a
result. The villagers who were eyewitnesses later told the media and
civil rights organisations that the police story of the ‘encounter’ was
to cover up the fact that the squad members were poisoned by using spies
and killed. The government and the police have never acknowledged this
covert and cold blooded mass murder, and rather hailed it as “the
biggest ever counter-insurgency operation in the state”. These are just
two of the innumerable instances of fascist murder by the state’s forces
against the revolutionary movement using spies, coverts and vigilante
gangs, and then boasting of shooting down revolutionary leaders, cadres,
sympathisers and civilians in ‘heroic’ battles. The latest killing of
ten Maoists in Chatra district of Jharkhand points to a similar cold
blooded murder for which the Indian state and its armed forces are
equally responsible as its foot-soldiers – the TPC. This covert
operation smacks of the fascist former CRPF boss K Vijay Kumar’s
involvement, who is presently the advisor to the governor of Jharkhand
and virtually running the home ministry in the state which is presently
under President’s rule.
TPC was formed by renegades of the CPI(Maoist) after deserting the
party in 2001. The Indian state, its armed forces and intelligence
agencies were instrumental in its formation and continued presence in
Chatra, Latehar and Ranchi districts. TPC has established a reign of
terror in these districts, indulging in killings, kidnapping, extortion
and torture – all under the patronage of the state and its armed forces.
It has particularly targeted the revolutionary organisations and their
mass base during the twelve years of its existence. This is because TPC
considers the revolutionary masses and their movement as the biggest
impediment for its expansion, which is coterminous with the safeguarding
the political power of the reactionary ruling classes comprising of the
feudal forces and the comprador big bourgeoisie.
TPC is only one of the vigilante gangs run by the ruling classes. In
Jharkhand itself, the Indian state has promoted other fascist execution
squads which go by the names of Jharkhand Prastuti Committee, Shanti
Sena. There is hardly any difference between TPC of Jharkhand and the
Salwa Judum of Chhattisgarh, Ranvir Sena of Bihar, Sendra and Narsi
Cobra of Andhra Pradesh, Shanti Sena of Odisha, Ikhwan of Kashmir and
Sulfa of Asom. They are all sponsored, nurtured and used by the Indian
state to crush the democratic and revolutionary movements of the
oppressed peoples and nationalities. Only, TPC claims itself to be a
‘Maoist’ group, and the state too conveniently portrays them as such!
RDF demands that a judicial enquiry be immediately conducted to
enquire into the killing of ten Maoists in Chatra, Jharkhand, so that
the facts of the incident can be brought to light and those guilty of
this cold blooded murder be brought to book. We also believe that the
lives of the twenty people kidnapped by the TPC are in danger. Whether
they are presently in the custody of the TPC or the police, all measures
must be taken to save their lives. All of them must be produced before a
magistrate immediately. In addition, TPC must be disbanded without
delay, and the Indian state must stop its patronization of vigilante
gangs in the country, including TPC in Jharkhand.
Varavara Rao, President
Rajkishore, General Secretary
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