Many were civilians caught in the crossfire, says Agnivesh The Chhattisgarh police and the Central Reserve Police Force claim to have killed 20 guerrillas of the Communist Party of India (maoist) in two separate incidents in the State’s Sukma and Bijapur districts in the early hours of Friday. But, sources in the State police and inter-faith activist Swami Agnivesh said many of those killed in Bijapur were civilians caught in the...

Indications are that many civilians were killed in the counterinsurgency operation In the early hours of Friday, about six hundred troopers from the Central Reserve Police Force and the Combat Battalion for Resolute Action (CoBRA) commando unit conducted an operation in Chhattisgarh’s Bijapur district in which 18 tribal villagers were killed and six CRPF troopers injured. Two suspected maoists were killed in Sukma in an unrelated incident the same day. As per the...

-PTI Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Wednesday said the wrong policy and non-functional police of the Left Front Government in West Bengal were responsible for the rise of maoists in the State. “Left Front Government should be blamed for the rise of maoists in West Bengal. Their wrong policy and non-functional police have allowed the maoists to enter the state and strengthen their base in Junglemahal,” the senior Congress leader told...

The State finds a handy tool in a colonial law to quell dissent Wrong Arm Of The Law   Why ‘sedition’ rings hollow in India 2012 The law Section 124(A) of the Indian Penal Code, 1870; non-bailable offence The definition Whoever by words, either spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible representation, or otherwise, brings or attempts to bring into hatred or contempt, or excites or attempts to excite disaffection towards the government...

-The Hindustan Times The tribals of Gadchiroli seem to be living in perennial fear of naxalites. The threat is so visible that it prevented the tribals from filing nominations for the June 24 mid-term panchayat elections in 139 gram panchayats. The maoists have left the Gadchiroli district administration paralyzed. To a large extent, they have also been able to derail local governance by instilling fear among the leaders of different political...