Red storm receding

The collapse of the CPI(Maoist) command structure offers a rare opportunity for the authorities to finish off the insurgency in the red corridor and broaden development work

- BY NAMRATA BIJI AHUJA

In the forest-fringed village of Galgam in Usoor tehsil of Bijapur district, Chhattisgarh, nights recently echoed with gunfire from the nearby Karreguttalu hills. But with the first light of dawn, a different rhythm ensued—school bells summoned children to classrooms, their cheerful chatter slicing through the trees that once concealed armed guerrillas. For decades, this region—an entry point into the red corridor stretching from the Chhattis-garh-Telangana border into Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Odisha—remained under the shadow of the CPI(Maoist).

“There was a time when Maoists blew up hundreds of schools. Neither children nor teachers dared set foot here,” says Ravi Kishor Morla, a middle school teacher in Usoor. “This small village, surrounded by hilly terrain, has provided shelter to Maoist leaders for decades. Naxal agents and sympathisers have lived in this village, often drumming up local support to destroy schools to prevent security forces from using them as a base to launch operations in the hills.”

Young boys were once trained to plant explosives to blow up schools and turn their homes into bunkers. Not anymore. Ravi says his school remained functional even as the nearby camps of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and state police bustled with activity over the past month. Security personnel moved through Karreguttalu hills on a mission to neutralise Nambala Keshava Rao alias Basavaraju, the CPI(Maoist)'s top military commander and general secretary.

“Basavaraju wasn’t on the front lines often, but he trained young tribal boys to use weapons and IEDs (improvised explosive devices). He liaised with the Sri Lankan terrorist outfit Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) for explosives training and gave Maoists technical superiority for years,” said a senior security officer involved in the operation. “With his death, the command [structure] has collapsed.”