Saturday, April 22, 2006
The biggest internal threat India is facing today
Presently I am stationed at Jagdalpur. The political situation here is grave. The emergence of Naxalites and their counter force ‘Salwa Judum’ are creating havoc. No day passes without any news of killing of people either by the Naxalites or their opponents. Yesterday the naxalites raided a police station killing 10 policemen. The state Govt. appointed Mr. K.P.S.Gill, the super cop of Punjab as advisor to counter the naxalites. Mr. Gill is credited with the curbing of Khalistan movement in Punjab. Yesterday he landed here and had a hectic tour with the administrative officials.
Prime Minister had said that the naxalite threat is the most dangerous threat the country is facing today. But some how the attitude of the Govt. does not show the seriousness of the situation. During my interaction with the local populace, almost all of them have sympathy for the naxalites. It seems the emergence of the naxalites are not a new phenomena. They are people friendly and operating since long. Till recently they were mainly targeting the contractors of forest produce collecting money from them, but generally left the populace unaffected. But the emergence of Salwa Judum has started the violence. Salwa Judum is created by a local opposition leader as a resistance force against the naxalites. In paper that seems to be good movement. But as per the version of local populace, the salwa judum mainly built up with political motive. The members of Salwa Judum are local goons. With the active blessings of administration they are playing havoc with the day-to-day life of innocent people. Now because of them the naxalites are taking retaliatory action and killing members of Salwa Judum. I personally had a bitter experience with the salwa judum members.
I go back to Hyderabad every week end. The only convenient transport system available is bus, which is not definitely comfortable, but faster than train journey. It takes approx. 13 hours. But my last journey to Hyderabad was miserable. From Jagdalpur to Kothagudem of Andhra Pradesh is densely forest area and the place is infested by the naxalites. The bus was checked by the Salwa Judum members. The most irritating part of this wasteful exercise is that, every village on the way has their own group of members to check the bus, thus checking the bus almost every 5 kms. The members were rude, asking irrelevant questions and mainly targeting the tribal passengers. Ultimately when the checking started at rate of after every 10 minutes of ride, I could not keep myself quiet and at one point tried to reason with them about the stupidity of this kind of checking. In response they started abusing me and threatened me to detain me forcibly. Ultimately the bus conductor and driver counseled me to keep low. They allowed us to leave after detaining the bus for another half an hour as punishment.
That is the reason this week end I am here at Jagdalpur, as I want to make this unpleasant encounters as less as possible. Hence instead of weekly, my return to Hyderabad will be fortnightly.
The total episode brought out one clear picture, that the administration has abdicated its duty. The citizens are at the mercy of Naxalites at Naxalite controlled areas and of the Salwa Judum members at the rest of the places.I am going to give some more reports on the raging political activities of the area and from the horse’s mouth i.e. the version of the affected people.
Prime Minister had said that the naxalite threat is the most dangerous threat the country is facing today. But some how the attitude of the Govt. does not show the seriousness of the situation. During my interaction with the local populace, almost all of them have sympathy for the naxalites. It seems the emergence of the naxalites are not a new phenomena. They are people friendly and operating since long. Till recently they were mainly targeting the contractors of forest produce collecting money from them, but generally left the populace unaffected. But the emergence of Salwa Judum has started the violence. Salwa Judum is created by a local opposition leader as a resistance force against the naxalites. In paper that seems to be good movement. But as per the version of local populace, the salwa judum mainly built up with political motive. The members of Salwa Judum are local goons. With the active blessings of administration they are playing havoc with the day-to-day life of innocent people. Now because of them the naxalites are taking retaliatory action and killing members of Salwa Judum. I personally had a bitter experience with the salwa judum members.
I go back to Hyderabad every week end. The only convenient transport system available is bus, which is not definitely comfortable, but faster than train journey. It takes approx. 13 hours. But my last journey to Hyderabad was miserable. From Jagdalpur to Kothagudem of Andhra Pradesh is densely forest area and the place is infested by the naxalites. The bus was checked by the Salwa Judum members. The most irritating part of this wasteful exercise is that, every village on the way has their own group of members to check the bus, thus checking the bus almost every 5 kms. The members were rude, asking irrelevant questions and mainly targeting the tribal passengers. Ultimately when the checking started at rate of after every 10 minutes of ride, I could not keep myself quiet and at one point tried to reason with them about the stupidity of this kind of checking. In response they started abusing me and threatened me to detain me forcibly. Ultimately the bus conductor and driver counseled me to keep low. They allowed us to leave after detaining the bus for another half an hour as punishment.
That is the reason this week end I am here at Jagdalpur, as I want to make this unpleasant encounters as less as possible. Hence instead of weekly, my return to Hyderabad will be fortnightly.
The total episode brought out one clear picture, that the administration has abdicated its duty. The citizens are at the mercy of Naxalites at Naxalite controlled areas and of the Salwa Judum members at the rest of the places.I am going to give some more reports on the raging political activities of the area and from the horse’s mouth i.e. the version of the affected people.
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