Delhi caution on Maoists

New Delhi, July 25: The Centre will stick to the rules and keep its hands off Mamata Banerjee’s prisoner amnesty scheme but has been cautioning the state that the Maoists are regrouping in areas such as Jungle Mahal.

“We will not interfere in what the state government does,” the secretary (internal security) in the Union home ministry, U.K. Bansal, told The Telegraph, echoing what home minister P. Chidambaram recently said.

Bansal said the state government was in constant touch with the Centre “on all matters”.

However, sources said, the home ministry is worried at intelligence agencies’ assessment that releasing Maoist prisoners would embolden the rebels and put back the fight against them “by a year”.

In the past 10 weeks, the home ministry has sent at least half a dozen advisories to the Bengal government detailing the Maoist threat in the state. The salient point has been that the Maoists have been regrouping, especially in the Jungle Mahal area of West Midnapore.

The 52 political prisoners to be released include Maoist leaders Pradip Chatterjee and Chandi Sarkar along with many Kamtapur and Greater Cooch Behar activists. Chief minister Mamata Banerjee wants to free the prisoners as part of her peace efforts with Maoists, especially to nudge the rebels towards talks.

However, her known stand is that top leaders of the CPI (Maoist) or the rebel-backed People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities will not be freed till she receives a “positive response” to her appeal for an end to violence in Jungle Mahal and to her offer of talks.

Security agencies too admit that the Maoists have indeed scaled down their activities in Bengal even though they are on an offensive in neighbouring Bihar.

Still, the intelligence agencies nurture doubts over the Maoists’ sincerity about holding talks with the state government. “For the Maoists, Bengal is only one area; they look at the entire country,” said an official.

Compared with six Maoist attacks on the railways in Bengal last year, there have been none this year, a source said. Attacks on panchayat bodies and telephone powers too have decreased.

However, attacks have increased in Bihar although killings have fallen, the sources said. The Maoists destroyed 16 telephone towers this year till 15 July compared with just seven last year.

A total of 176 incidents of Maoist violence have already been recorded this year in Bihar against 207 last year.

The Centre has received feedback that the Maoists are planning a “tactical united front” with other Left-wing extremists. Security agencies have reported that at least two CPI (Maoist) politburo members, one of them being Kishan alias Koteshwara Rao, have been hiding in the Saranda forests of Jharkhand.