India to seek Headley's extradition

Determined to seek the extradition of Pakistani-American terrorist David Coleman Headley and access to him, India will raise the issue with US at the official-level during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's four-day visit here.

National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon, who is accompanying the Prime Minister, will raise the issue during his meeting with his counterpart Gen (Retd) James Jones.

"We will keep pushing...This will be one of the issues...we will use every occasion to seek access (to David Headley)," sources said.

New Delhi's preference is extradition of the LeT operative as the crime was committed in India, they said.

However, if it takes some time then India would like to have direct access to him through legal process so that it (the information provided by Headley) is admissible in courts in India, the sources said.

It was not certain whether Singh will raise the issue during his meeting with President Barack Obama at the Blair House here on Sunday.

Singh is here to attend the two-day Nuclear Summit beginning Monday.

India wants to interrogate David Coleman Headley, who has confessed to plotting the Mumbai carnage, to unravel the entire conspiracy.

Headley had last month pleaded guilty to all terror charges before a US court on March 18.

49-year-old Headley, who faces six counts of conspiracy involving bombing public places in India, murdering and maiming persons in India and providing material support to foreign terrorist plots and LeT; and six counts of aiding and abetting the murder of US citizens in India, could have been sentenced to death if convicted.

After pleading guilty, he will now get a maximum punishment of life imprisonment.

Maoists tailed CRPF for 12 hrs

For about 12 hours, Maoists trailed the 62nd battalion of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) like a shadow as they returned from a three-day combing operation. The Maoists, who were accompanied by a tribal outfit of the Bhumkal Militia, watched and waited for the right moment before ambushing and attacking the oblivious security personnel on Tuesday.
The attack that took place in the dense forests of Mukrana between the Chintalnar and Tadimetla blocks in Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh claimed 76 lives.
CRPF sources at the Chintagufa camp, about 48 km from the Dornapal junction on the Andhra Pradesh-Jagdalpur national highway, listed the strategic mistakes of the personnel.
The 82-strong contingent of the CRPF battalion was returning home in one group from a three-day combing operation in the forests. This, a source said, was avoidable.
"On Monday evening, the tired CRPF men reached the Tadimetla area and decided to stay put in the forest. Instead of returning to the Chintagufa camp about 7 km away or moving on to Chintalnar 10-12 km away, the men selected a clearing in the forest and spent the night there. It was the biggest blunder," a CRPF deputy commandant said.
The Maoists, who had been watching the CRPF forces from a hill top around their temporary camp, silently surrounded the resting force from all sides. As soon as they woke up at 6 am, the Maoists ambushed the police forces, attacking them with grenades and bullets. The militia simultaneously attacked the forces with arrows, daggers and axes.
The incident raked up the pertinent question of whether Operation Green Hunt, launched against the Maoists by the Centre, would be a losing battle. The ability of the forces to fight a long-drawn battle with the Maoists came under a cloud.
The 62nd battalion, which suffered the worst-ever loss in the recent incident, comprises seven companies of armed forces; each company has 135 personnel. Apart from the 945 members, there are another 250 members in the battalion to assist the armed forces.
"It is easy to find excuses, but the fact remains that we need to be better prepared for this kind of battle. Nobody will help us work out strategies. We have to do it on our own. We have fought bigger battles. Even in the Kargil War, we did not lost such a large number of people in a single attack. There is definitely something wrong," said a Sikh jawan of the battalion.
Despite being in the forests of Dantewada for some time, the CRPF forces did not have a clue about the interior areas and the surrounding hillocks.
"The Andhra Pradesh model should be an eye opener (for the CRPF). Most of the time, the combing parties of Greyhounds in Andhra Pradesh do not move together. They follow a certain pattern while undertaking combing operations. They move forward in circles. If a party of five to six commandos move in one direction, it is followed by another party forming a circle around the first party. The third party moves in a similar way.
This reduces the chances of the Maoists ambushing the forces from all sides. If they fire at one circle of commandos, the other two circles can immediately retaliate. That is why there has never been such a heavy casualty to the forces in our state," a top officer in the Andhra Pradesh Police department said.
Besides, the official explained, the Greyhounds do not move on the main road. They preferred to walk on either side of the thoroughfare to escape landmines.
"Unless very essential, the forces have not been using vehicles during combing operations in the last few years. Most of the times, they prefer trekking. Whenever they have used vehicles in the past, there have been explosions," the source recalled.
The Andhra Pradesh Police had also developed a strong informer network among the locals, making it easier to track the movement of the Maoists.
They also used the services of the surrendered Maoists to understand the ins and outs of the forest areas, so that they could keep a tab on the movement of the rebels.
This, sources said, was clearly lacking in the Chhattisgarh Police and the paramilitary forces. On the other hand, the Maoists had established their own strong intelligence among the tribals.
"The tribals don't cooperate with us. If we try to talk to them, they don't respond. Instead, they pass on information about us to the Maoists," said a CRPF commandant at Kankerwada camp, about 19 km from Chintalnar.
"We have set up a stitching centre and a school to help the tribals, but nobody makes use of them. They run away into the forests at the first given opportunity every morning in the name of procuring forest produce.
They return only in the evening. They act as Maoist informers," he complained. So, how long can the operation against the Maoists go on without adequate preparedness? "Well, we need to rework our strategies, learn from our setbacks.
These decisions have to be taken at the highest level.

Maoists are the real govt for tribals in Dantewada'

How could the Maoists hold their sway in Chhattisgarh's Dantewada region and massacre 76 CRPF personnel on Tuesday without suffering many losses themselves? The bloodbath took place despite the heavy presence of security forces there for the last five years and the ongoing Operation Green Hunt against the rebels. The answer is simple: The Maoists have the total support of local tribals, most of whom belong to the Muriya or Gothikoya sect.

A social activist from Andhra Pradesh's Khammam district, J. Venkatesh, said: "In the latest attack on the CRPF forces, these tribals played a major role. There were about 200 Maoists, but the number of Muriya tribals involved was double. The tribals attacked the forces with arrows, swords and axes." He added: "The tribals form a large part of the People's Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA) of the Maoists. They don't understand the Maoist philosophy.

All they know is to simply follow the commands given by top leaders." The tribals have developed animosity towards the police forces because they have been the worst victims of CRPF atrocities during Operation Green Hunt and earlier combing operations. Inquiries revealed that Chintagufa, where the recent massacre took place, witnessed the killing of 16 innocent tribals last October. They were declared as Maoists.

Since then, the tribals had been waiting for an opportunity to take revenge. "There is hardly any instance of real Maoists getting killed in real or fake police encounters. No Maoist leader worth mentioning was arrested or killed. All the forces have been doing all these days in the name of Operation Green Hunt is harassing and killing local tribals by branding them as Maoists. So obviously, they treat the police as their enemies," a schoolteacher in Dornapal said.

The Maoists have also taken on the government's role. They are reportedly taking care of the needs of tribals in the deep forests. Locals in Dantewada talk about "people's governments" (janatana sarkars) in the tribal hamlets, where the Maoists have established local self-governments - they have set up schools and banks run by the tribals, created irrigation facilities by constructing check dams on streams, introduced collective farming and run revenue administration.

"For them, the Maoists are the real government since they have not seen any other officer coming to them so far. So, they are prepared to lay down their lives for the rebels," the teacher added. According to Manoj Shukla, whose family fled from Chintalnar to settle in Dornapal and ran a grocery shop, the Maoists have the locals completely in their grip.

"The police forces have never made an attempt to take the tribals into confidence and bring them into the mainstream. They treat the tribals with contempt and the tribals treat the police as the enemy," he said. As revolutionary balladeer and Maoist emissary Gaddar remarked, it is not totally a conflict between the police forces and the Maoists. "The police have waged a war against the people and they are now retaliating. It's a real people's war," he said.