Andhra Pradesh: Elite anti-Naxal force attacked
Uma Sudhir
Monday, June 30, 2008, (Hyderabad)
More than 24 hours after a deadly Maoist attack on security personnel travelling in a motor launch on a water reservoir off the Orissa-Andhra border, rescue operations are still going on with divers, navy choppers, foot patrol squads, all in all up to 300 personnel on the job.
Greyhounds dare to go where angels fear to tread. That is how they became the cutting edge of Andhra Pradesh's war against Maoists. This time it went horribly wrong.
"It is a stray incident but a major incident. Ultimately, we need more interstate coordination so that our boys don't go and get hurt there because coordination goes into disarray," said Andhra Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy.
Ironically, the blow comes less than two months after the Union Home Ministry took Andhra Pradesh off the list of high-priority states for combating leftist extremism.
The state Home Minister has said this is the biggest incident ever since the formation of the Greyhounds in 1989.
But there are important questions that need answers. Did the Greyhounds fall into trap acting on wrong intelligence? Or was it complacency that led to the elite force using the waterways even though they were not equipped for combat on water? And the reported use of a rocket launcher by the Maoists is a big point of concern.
Revolutionary writer Varavara Rao says mobile guerilla warfare is the new Maoist strategy.
"Recent Congress has decided that it is a mobile struggle. In mobile war, there is only a shifting of headquarters, not shifting of strategy or war," said Maoist sympathiser Varavara Rao.
A police inquiry has been ordered into what went wrong.
"An elite force is as good as its leadership. No point in having an elite force if you can't tactically plan every offensive that they go into," said Swaranjit Singh, former DGP, Andhra Pradesh.