World War II weapons seized from Maoists

Bhubaneswar: Are the Maoists using weapons dating back to World War II now?
A top Odisha police official said seizure of two US-made carbine 30M1 rifles, used from the WWII days to the Korean and Vietnam wars and beyond, from four dead Naxals in Bijapur district of Chhattisgarh on November 26, has sounded alarm bells ringing for neighbouring Odisha.
Odisha DGP Sunil Kumar Bansal and his team along with his Chhattisgarh counterpart Ashok Juneja held a video conference on Tuesday, with officials from the Intelligence Bureau, Central Reserve Police Force and Border Security Force joining the interstate-coordination meeting.
“The recovery of the two US-made weapons from Naxals is certainly unusual. We assume that the firearms were used in World War-II by the American forces and later. We suspect the weapons might have fallen at the hands of Naxals through some arms dealers. We are alert to the development and have taken the matter very seriously,” Odisha DGP Bansal told TOI.
The MI carbine, a semi-automatic lighter and smaller weapon was largely used in jungle warfare by US marines, before it finally gave way to more improved M2 and M3 carbines.
Top police officials of the two states talked about prevention of interstate movement of Maoists.
Odisha’s naxal-affected districts bordering Chhattisgarh, include Bargarh, Koraput, Malkangiri, Nabarangpur, Nuapada and Balangir.
Cops of both states said frequent seizures of sophisticated weapons like Insas and AK-47 rifles from Maoists were also turning out to be a headache.
Sources said they suspect the Maoists are getting the weapons and ammunition from northeast rebels and arms racketeers. They also did not rule out the possibility of leakage of weapons from authorised or official sources.
“We discussed in detail about our strategies, coordination and sharing of intelligence inputs to combat LWE along the Odisha-Chhattisgarh border. It was stressed upon that all concerned agencies will work with more synergy to combat the LWE menace in a more proactive and effective manner,” Bansal said.
Police sources said some 263-odd Maoists are currently active in Odisha. Of them, at least 200 are from Chhattisgarh whereas only 49 and 14 are from Andhra Pradesh and Odisha, respectively.