Maoists split in State: Hindu guerrilla army appears

The
Maoist organisation in the State is heading for an imminent spilt. It
came to light when an organisation identified itself as Hindu guerilla
Bahini (army) distributed leaflets in Gajpati and other parts of the
KBK area asking people to close down the shops on Thursday as mark of
respect to the VHP’s 86 year-old-monk Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati who
was killed last year by some unscrupulous people.

Out of fear, a number of shops were also closed down. DGP Manmohan Praharaj also made an aerial survey of the area, source said.

Coming
under a tremendous pressure, the Maoists on Wednesday denied that they
had issued any threat letters to the Puri Sankaracharya Nischalananda
Saraswati.

On behalf of the Maoists, Secretary of the CPI (Maoist) Sunil signed the letter.

He also pointed out that few people tried to mislead the public taking the name of Maoists.

Significantly,
Sunil also denied the police claim that those whom police arrested in
connection with the Swami Laxmanananda murder case were not the real
culprits. He also asked police not to torture the innocent tribals.

Police
has tried to seize the opportunity. More and more people have come
forward to get recruited in the police department to combat Maoists.

While the State plans to appoint 500 people from Kandhamal, it received over 3,000 applications.

The
State is planning to recruit 2,000 special police officers (SPOs) to
fight Maoist rebels. All of them would be recruited from the Maoists
affected districts of — Malkangiri, Koraput, Gajapati, Rayagada and
Kandhamal. “People have come out spontaneously to join the police
department,” said Kandhamal SP Praveen Kumar.

Similarly in n Rayagada and Koraput, 1,800 and 1,200 applications were received against 400 posts each.

In Malkangiri, some 800 applications were received. Out of which 236 SPOs were selected.

Police
officials in KBK pointed out that if the authorities had lowered the
education eligibility from Class VIII to Class V, more applicants would
come up join the police department to fight against the Maoists.

As per the existing provision, the selected SPOs would now be trained for three months before they were appointed.

They
would be appointed on a contractual basis for the first three years.
The SPOs would be paid Rs.4,000 per month in the first two years and
Rs.4,500 in the third year.

Sources said while the CPI
(Maoist) has influence in at least eight districts-Malkangiri, Koraput,
Rayagada, Gajapati, Sambalpur, Deogarh, Sundargarh and Mayurbhanj, the
CPI –(Marxist Leninist Jana Shakti), another leftwing extremist outfit,
has made its presence felt in the districts of Keonjhar, Jajpur and
Dhenkanal.

Though Maoist appealed to the people not to join
the special police force, more and more people have come up to join the
police force.

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