MANGALURU : After spending
Rs 20 crore and firing 1.7 lakh bullets, the 3,000-member-strong
Anti-Naxal Force hasn’t captured a single rebel alive in the past seven years. The only fatality is one of its own members when the force opened fire on a cop believing him to be a Naxalite in 2011.
This is part of the ANF’s response to TOI’s RTI query about its operations since 2010. Except media reports of a few Naxal sightings and combing operations, the force doesn’t have much success to its credit.
ANF sources said five suspected Naxalites are operating in the state — Vikas Gowda, BG Krishnamurthy, Mundagaru Latha, Vanajakshi and Angadi Pradeep. Either their hideout is not known or not revealed. However, a police source claimed that Gowda and Krishnamurthy have since shifted their base to Kerala.
Since 2010, the Karnataka government inducted 1,127 police officers of the rank of assistant sub-inspector or above and hired 1,540 head constables and constables. At present, the ANF has relieved 2,263 staffers, leaving the unit with 432 members. The personnel drafted for the force are paid more allowance —Rs 1,000 to Rs 8,000 per head — besides a daily food allowance of Rs 130. The government has so far spent Rs 19.7 crore on ANF.
Former Naxal leader Noor Zulfikar alias Sridhar said Naxalites have shifted their base out of Karnataka. “Naxalites have consciously shifted their activities to Wyanad and Karnataka-Kerala-Tamil Nadu tri-junction so that factions from the three states come together and put up a show of strength. That is a strategic move, but they will not succeed,”
Noor Sridhar told TOI. The tri-junction area covers the forests of Nagarahole and Bandipur in Karnataka, Mudumalai in
Tamil Nadu and Muthanga in Kerala.
Noor Sridhar said Naxalites have realized their cause of social justice cannot be achieved by fighting from the jungles. Thirteen rebels from Karnataka have surrendered since 2010.
The ANF, which hasn’t heard of any Naxal activity in
Dakshina Kannada since 2012, launched an operation in the first week of January citing the presence of three suspected Naxalites at
Shiradi in Uppinangady. They drew a blank.
In June 2017, three suspects — Kanyakumari, Suma and Shivu — surrendered to Chikkamagaluru police. District top cop K Annamalai later said there were no fresh recruitments in the state after this incident.
Force superintendent of police (Karkala) BM Lakshmi Prasad justified the investment on the unit and said that because of its presence that Naxal movement was on the wane. “They will come back strong if the ANF is weakened,” he said.
The state has 14 ANF camps, and is currently establishing its 15th at Gundlupet in Chamarajnagar district. A proposal has also been sent to the government to set up a camp in either at Belthangady or Sullia.
It may be recalled that the ANF killed one of its constables, Mahadev Mane, on the night of October 8, 2011. Suspecting Naxalites’ presence during a combing operation, the men started indiscriminate firing and a bullet ricocheted into Mane in Manjal forest near Belthangady.
TIMESVIEW
The government faces a dilemma here. It must either admit that the use of guns and bullets is not working to rein in Naxals, or it must admit that the force is not trained well enough to tackle them. But with Naxals themselves appearing to have resigned themselves to a lost cause and throwing in the towel, the government appears to be fighting a non-existent war. It should stop wasting time and taxpayers’ money on maintaining an anti-Naxal force and instead win over the rebels through incentives and a sound policy.
