Maoists use killing video to mobilise cadres

Naxals have videographed the killing of 76 CRPF jawans by them in Tadmetla forests in Chhattisgarh’s undivided Dantewada district on April 6, 2010, and have now been using the footage to woo the local tribals in Bastar to join their cadre, intelligence sources said on Wednesday. A senior police officer, quoting intelligence reports, said the insurgents have been arranging video shows in remote tribal villages in Bastar region to exhibit the footage of Tadmetla killings to the locals to flaunt their military power, apparently to motivate them to join their cadre. Such video shows have also been arranged for the local rebel cadres to boost their morale. “The Tadmetla attack is viewed among senior Naxals as one of their major successes in the fight against security forces. Hence, they are exhibiting the Tadmetla killing video among the local tribals as well as the cadres to counter the perception that their organisation has weakened following arrests and killing of a number of senior leaders in recent times,” the police officer told this newspaper. Significantly, the video footage also shows how the Naxal cadres who had suffered injured in the Tadmetla encounter have been treated in Maoists’ medical camps. “This was being done to counter the charges that the Maoists leaders usually leave their foot soldiers, wounded in encounters, to die,” intelligence sources said. The video footage of Tadmetla incidents has, meanwhile, been circulated to a section of local media in Raipur. The footage, accessed by this newspaper, shows the whole episode of Tadmetla beginning from how the CRPF contingent walked into the Maoist trap, and how the rebels attacked them from all sides closing all routes of escape for them, to movement of injured and dead jawans from the attack site by security forces. The footage also showed how the Naxal cadres injured in the operation have been treated in Maoist medical camps.

*** ‘Naxals present on border of kerala, k’taka’ Kannur (Kerala), Feb. 13: The police Wednesday confirmed the presence of Maoists along the Kerala-Karnataka border, but said the exact number of persons in the group and the type of weapons used by them was yet to be ascertained. “We have confirmed the presence of Maoists along the Kerala-Karnataka border, but are yet to ascertain the number of persons in the group or the type of weaponry used,” Kannur SP Rahul R. Nair said. — PTI