SOUTH ASIA INTELLIGENCE REVIEW
Weekly Assessments & Briefings
Volume 14, No. 31, February 1, 2016

INDIA

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Jharkhand: Tragic Errors, Sustained Consolidation
Ajit Kumar Singh
Research Fellow, Institute for Conflict Management

At least seven Jharkhand State Policemen were killed and another six sustained injuries when Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) cadres attacked a Security Forces (SFs) convoy near Kasiyar village under the Chhatarpur Police Station area of Palamu District on January 27, 2016. After conducting a combing operation in the Kalapahar area of the District, the SFs were returning to their Hussainabad base camp, when one of the vehicles (TATA-407 mini truck) carrying 13 Policemen hit a landmine while crossing a Kutcha Road (dirt track) and was about to reach the Hussainabad-Chhatarpur Main Road. Subsequently, the Maoists hiding nearby opened fire and attempted to loot Police weapons. Six Policemen aboard a Maruti Suzuki Gypsy that had safely passed the incident site a few minutes earlier heard the explosion and gun shots and returned to the incident site and fought the Maoists along with the injured Policemen. They were soon joined by a Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) contingent which was also the part of the combing team. Though SF weapons were not looted, the Maoists managed to escape.

State Director General of Police (DGP) D.K. Pandey admitted to critical Police lapses during the combing operation: "While carrying out operations in a remote area, the Police should have used an anti-landmine vehicle instead of moving around in a Tata 407 mini truck. Adequate backup for unprecedented eventualities was also not taken care of."

The DGP's observation that the Forces should have used anti-landmine vehicles itself seems questionable. It is useful to recall that then CRPF Director General Vijay Kumar, on October 11, 2011, had indicated that the paramilitary force needed to find better ways to counter hidden improvised explosive devices (IEDs), as the Mine Protected Vehicles (MPVs) had become "coffins on wheels" in Naxal [Left Wing Extremism, LWE]-hit states. Standard Operating Procedures (SoPs) require all units in Naxal-affected areas to patrol on foot, and to use MPVs only in very rare instances.

Indeed, a procedural failure led to the January 27 debacle, the first major attack (resulting in three or more fatalities) specifically targeting SFs in the State recorded since July 2, 2013, when Pakur District Superintendent of Police (SP) Amarjit Balihar and five other Policemen were killed in an ambush by CPI-Maoist cadres in the Kathikund Forest area of Dumka District. Balihar was returning from a meeting with Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Priya Dubey in Dumka when his vehicle was attacked by the Maoists. Another three were injured in the incident.

There was, however, another intervening incident of an attack on an election party, in which eight persons, including five Police personnel, two election officials and one cleaner, were killed and another 10 injured, when CPI-Maoist cadres exploded a landmine targeting a poll bus near Sarsa village under Shikaripara Police Station of Dumka District soon after voting for the Lok Sabha (Lower House of Parliament) elections ended on April 24, 2014.  

On the other hand the SFs have carried out at least three such major attacks since July 2, 2013. The Maoists suffered their biggest loss when 12 of their cadres were killed in an encounter with the Palamau District Police and a team of Commando Battalions for Resolute Action (CoBRA) personnel in Palamau District on June 9, 2015.

Through 2015, according to partial data compiled by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), SFs killed at least 24 LWE cadres in the State, while losing five of their own personnel, yielding a ratio of nearly 1:5. Of the remaining 13 LWE fatalities, 12 were killed in factional clashes while another was killed while planting a landmine.

In a booklet released on December 23, 2015, the State Police claimed that four Policemen were killed as against 42 LWEs in 2015 – 24 in Police encounters, three by civilians, and 15 in factional clashes. A huge amount of explosives and weapons were recovered, while the Police lost no weapon. Further, 400 Naxalites, including as many as 37 in the ranks of 'area commander' and above, were arrested during sustained anti-Naxal operations through 2015. Also, for the first time since 2011, there was not a single Naxalite attack on a Police Station in Jharkhand.

State Additional DGP (Operation) S. N. Pradhan observed,

The year saw the Police targeting the top and middle level leaders in the Maoist ranks through arrests or their neutralization. The mounting pressure hit hard on the Maoists as they lost on cadres while new cadres did not join them. This was an outstanding year. These were the biggest achievements during the last 10 years. LWE violence would be nearly wiped out in the next two-three years through sustained operations.

Indeed, LWE violence in the State is at its lowest level, as, indeed, across the country. According to SATP data, as against 97 fatalities, including 48 civilians, 12 SF personnel and 37 militants, recorded in 2014, 2015 saw 58 such fatalities, including 16 civilians, five SF personnel and 37 militants. This was the lowest number of SF fatalities since 2007, when six personnel were killed. More importantly civilian fatalities, at 16 through 2015, were also the lowest since 2006, when 18 civilians had been killed.

Unsurprisingly, other parameters of violence also recorded significant declines. According to the SATP database, the Maoists engaged in at least 14 incidents of arson in eight Districts – Latehar (2), Palamu (3), Hazaribagh (2), Garwah (3), Bokaro (1), Ranchi (1), West Singhbhum (1) and Seraikela Kharswan (1) through 2015; as against 12 such incidents in eight Districts in 2014. In 2015 LWE groups were involved in three blasts in three Districts – Deoghar, Hazaribagh and Lohardaga – in comparison to eight blasts in four Districts – Bokaro (3), Giridih (2), Latehar (2), and Hazaribagh (1) in 2014. There were four recorded cases of abduction in 2015, against five such cases in 2014.

An analysis of Maoist violence, as well as of overground and underground activities in Jharkhand through 2015 indicates that a total of 11 Districts, including East Singhbhum, West Singhbhum, Giridih, Gumla, Hazaribagh, Khunti, Palamu, Ranchi, Latehar, Simdega, and Lohardaga remain highly affected; six Districts – Bokaro, Chatra, Seraikela-Kharswan, Godda, Garwah and Dumka, are moderately affected; while five Districts – Dhanbad, Ramgarh, Koderma, Deoghar and Pakur, are marginally affected by LWE activities. The number of affected Districts remained the same as in 2014, though there has been significant movement between categories. According to Police data, for the second year in a row, the Maoists could not hold any 'people's court' in any part of the state.

In another positive development during the course of the year, the second Panchayat (village local bodies) election was conducted in the State, with voters giving a clear electoral rebuff to the Maoists, turning out in large numbers. Despite a poll boycott call by the Maoists, the voting percentage stood at a high 72 per cent. Moreover, during the four phase Panchayat election held from November 22 to December 12, 2015, there was negligible LWE violence recorded in the State, with media reports indicating just two arson incidents and one civilian killing. The first Panchayat election, a five phase election, conducted between November 27 and December 24, 2010, had seen much higher levels of LWE violence, though the voting percentage was high even then (70 per cent).

Jharkhand has clearly secured remarkable successes in its fight against LWE through 2015, a narrative that is now common to most of the Naxal-affected States in India. In terms of Naxal-related fatalities recorded on a year on year basis, barring Chhattisgarh and Telangana, where there has been a marginal increase, there have been dramatic improvements everywhere, the result of a steady erosion of Maoist capacities and capabilities, overwhelmingly as a result of a sustained loss of leadership over the past decade. These gains have been consolidated by fitful improvements, marred by occasional fiascos, in SF operations.

The new Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) State Government had made its intent clear in the beginning of 2015. Indicating a tough stance, Jharkhand Chief Secretary Sajal Chakarabarty described the fight against LWE as a war and asserted, on January 14, 2015,

There is no time to surrender now. That train has left the station. If you want to get in, run and try. In three months, there will be no active Naxal activity here. For me, the best Naxalite is a dead Naxalite.

Days later, echoing the same view, Chief Minister (CM) Raghubar Das had said his Government will "rise to the challenge" posed by insurgents and "decimate extremism and CPI-Maoist violence in the state within six months".

To realize this intent, the Government took measures to strengthen the Police Force. Jharkhand Police has around 4,200 officers [from Assistant Sub Inspector (ASI) to Director General (DG)] as against around 47,000 men (including Constables, Head Constables and Grade 4), yielding a teeth to tail ratio of 1:4.95. The State Police booklet released on December 23, 2015, stated that it had been decided to increase the number of Officers to 5,958 with an equivalent reduction in posts of Constables. The Government decided to improve infrastructure in 33 Urban Police Stations in financial year (2015-2016) and 50 Police Stations are to be taken up every year thereafter. However, no information is available regarding implementation of targets set for financial year 2015-2016. Changes have also been made in the training program, including a decision that the entire constabulary would undergo Firing and Field Craft Training every year. A January 5, 2016, report suggested that five Additional SPs, who will lead the anti-Maoist operations, were likely to be deployed in LWE-hit Districts to ensure ‘prompt and smooth conduct of operations’. Meanwhile, on January 27, 2016, the Central Government cleared the creation of 17 new Indian Reserve Battalions (IRBs), including three for Jharkhand. At present, Jharkhand has 24 battalions of central forces, including 20 CRPF battalions, two Sashatra Seema Bal (SSB) and two of CRPF's special strike force, CoBRA.

While operational pressures have been built up against the Maoists, the Government also amended the 2009 Surrender and Rehabilitation Policy in March 2015, making it more lucrative for those who were willing to abjure violence and return to the ‘mainstream’. According to the amended Policy, surrendered cadres were to be divided into two categories – 'A' and 'B'. Those falling into the 'A' category would receive a rehabilitation grant of INR 500,000; while 'B' category cadres would receive INR 250,000. Though no authentic number is available, Chief Minister Das claimed that the surrender policy for the LWEs has been redesigned and as a result, the number of surrendering Naxalites had increased. Meanwhile, to encourage further surrenders, the Jharkhand Police is mulling the dropping of criminal cases against cadres if they gave themselves up. According to the December 2015 Police booklet, "The best possible incentive for Naxal surrenders could be a complete withdrawal of cases. In this light the Police Department with support of the Government has begun to seriously consider the legal issues in withdrawing prosecution against those top Naxals who are willing to surrender. The Police is also trying to recruit in the Police force those former Naxals who have been absolved by courts and/ or who are in the surrender process."

Despite occasional setbacks such as the January 27, 2016, attack, the Government’s carrot and stick policy appears to be working. Nevertheless, the Maoists continue to carry out lethal attacks intermittently. The core of the State's approach was, however, defined by State DGP D.K. Pandey, when he declared, “taking lessons from yesterday’s [January 27, 2016] blast, the Police will carry on further operations against the rebels in the State." Errors and consequent losses are, perhaps, inevitable in protracted operations; but if the will and clarity of purpose remain, Jharkhand could stand out as an example for neighboring States like Chhattisgarh, where the Maoists retain their greatest strength.

BANGLADESH

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Political Wranglings and a Spike in Extremism
S. Binodkumar Singh
Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management

On January 25, 2016, a Dhaka Court ordered Bangladesh’s former Prime Minister (PM) and head of the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) Begum Khaleda Zia to appear in court on March 3, 2016, to answer the charge of sedition. Momtaz Uddin Ahmad Mehdi, a lawyer with the Bangladesh Supreme Court (SC) and a supporter of the ruling Awami League (AL) had filed a case alleging that Zia’s remarks about the Liberation War of 1971 were seditious.

On December 21, 2015, Zia, accused the AL of ‘patronising’ war criminals by giving them freedom-fighter tags. At a programme in Dhaka city, she declared, “He (Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman) wanted to be the Prime Minister of Pakistan. He did not want an independent Bangladesh. Those who are real Razakars (collaborators of Pakistani force), who actually harassed, tortured and killed innocent people during the war, will have to be tried and punished. Those who did not fight the war but helped the war criminals are now very close to the Awami League. There are many such examples.” Section 123 (A) of the Bangladesh Penal Code prescribes punishment "with rigorous imprisonment of up to ten years for condemnation of the creation of Bangladesh".

Reacting to the development, Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, acting Secretary General of BNP, dismissed the case as politically motivated, arguing, “This is nothing but a mockery and its aim is to deter Khaleda from politics. The intent of the Government is to continue its repression of the opposition by Police, making confrontational politics (sic).” He went on to add that 17,000 opposition activists had been arrested since 2014 and 3,000 were still in jail.

Within the complex web of claims and counter-claims, it is clear that the battle of the Begums, who have a long history of political rivalry, has intensified. This is primarily due to incumbent Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed’s decision to open an inquiry into crimes committed during the Liberation War of 1971. Notably, after assuming power in 2009, in her second stint as Prime Minister of Bangladesh, Hasina fulfilled her electoral promise and constituted the International Crimes Tribunal-1 (ICT-1) on March 25, 2010, paving the way for prosecutions of war criminals. Subsequently, on March 22, 2012, ICT-2 was constituted to expedite prosecutions.

So far, the two ICTs have indicted 53 leaders, including 36 from Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI), six from Muslim League (ML), five from Nezam-e-Islami (NeI), four from BNP and two from the Jatiya Party (JP). Verdicts against 24 of them have already been delivered – 17 were awarded death sentence while the remaining seven received life sentences. Four of the 17 who received the death sentence have already been executed, while 13 others cases are currently pending with the Appellate Division of the SC.

Evidently, BNP and its main ally JeI, have been at the ‘receiving end’ of these trials and have consequently been opposing the Government on this issue. Hasina has refused to be cowed down by the opposition combine’s disruptive campaigns, which have resulted in 419 deaths since the delivery of the first verdict by ICT-2 against JeI leader Maulana Abul Kalam Azad alias Bachchu Razakar on January 21, 2013. Only five such deaths were recorded in 2015, as the verdicts and their implementation have received overwhelming support across Bangladesh. In her latest assertion, on December 14, 2015, Hasina declared that no force in world could stop Bangladesh’s war crimes’ trials.

Meanwhile, five indictments and three verdicts came in 2015. Four persons were awarded life sentences, while one received the death sentences. More prominently, three of a total of four hangings in these cases took place in 2015. On November 22, 2015, condemned war crimes convicts JeI Secretary General Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed (67) and BNP Standing Committee member Salauddin Quader Chowdhury (66) were hanged simultaneously at Dhaka Central Jail; and on April 11, 2015, JeI Senior Assistant Secretary General Muhammad Kamaruzzaman (63), the third most senior figure in the JeI, was hanged at Dhaka Central Jail.

The execution of JeI and BNP leaders through 2015 unsettled entrenched elements in these formations. The Government is, moreover, trying to expedite the process of banning JeI. On January 17, 2016, Law Minister Anisul Huq disclosed, “We are trying to revise the International Crimes (Tribunals) Act of 1973 so that any political party including Jamaat can be punished for committing crimes in 1971. A bill on the amendment will be placed before Parliament in the next session.” On August 1, 2013, JeI’s registration as a political party was declared illegal by the High Court as its party charter had several provisions contrary to the country’s Constitution.

These developments during the course of 2015 had a far reaching impact on the security environment of the country. While older terrorist and extremist groups have been decimated by Hasina’s crackdown since 2009, surviving splinters and new formations have come to the fore again, and there has been a surge in both radical and terrorist activities. At least 23 civilians and two Security Force (SF) personnel were killed in acts of terror unleashed by terror groups like Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT), Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), Islamic State (IS) and Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), through 2015. The number of such fatalities in 2014 stood at two, including one civilian killed by the Hefazat-e-Islam (HeI) and one SF trooper killed in a JMB ambush.

ABT, an Al Qaeda affiliate, hacked to death five bloggers and publishers in 2015 for their alleged position ‘against Islam’. In the latest of series of such attacks, on October 31, 2015, secular blogger and Jagriti Prakashani publisher, Faisal Arefin Dipan (40), was hacked to death at his office in Aziz Super Market, Dhaka city. ABT also killed nine people during a robbery at the Bangladesh Commerce Bank Limited (BCBL) in Ashulia near Dhaka city on April 21, 2015. Later, on May 31, 2015, Police arrested Mahfuzul Islam aka Suman (35), an ABT ‘operational commander’ and mastermind of the bank robbery, from the Badda area in Dhaka.

Further, three pirs (revered religious instructors, usually of Sufi orientation) and one attendant were also killed by Islamist extremists in 2015, for their ‘deviant’ religious ideology. On October 5, 2015, Muhammad Khijir Khan (66), the former chairman of the Power Development Board (PDB), a freedom fighter and a pir, was killed by seven unidentified armed men by slitting his throat at his Madhya Badda house in Dhaka; on September 7, 2015, assailants shot dead another pir, Hazrat Moulana Mohammad Salahuddin Khan Bishal (30), in his sleep in the Vorotpur area of Atghoria upazila (Sub-District) in Pabna District; on September 5, 2015, unknown assailants slit the throat of a pir, Rahmat Ullah (60), along with that of an attendant, inside a shrine in the Bayezid area of Chittagong city.

Bangladesh was also stunned by the killing of two foreign nationals in 2015. On October 3, 2015, Japanese national Hoshi Kunio (66) was gunned down by three unidentified assailants in the Kaunia sub-District of Rangpur District. On September 28, 2015, an Italian charity worker, Cesare Tavella (50), a technical director working with the Netherlands-based Interchurch Organization for Development Cooperation (ICCO), was killed in Dhaka city's Gulshan area. The IS claimed the killings, though Dhaka maintained that they were locally orchestrated, and that IS had no presence in the country.

IS also claimed a suicide attack at the Chokpara Ahmadiyya Jamaat Mosque in Bagmara sub-District of Rajshahi District on December 25, 2015, in which one person (the suicide bomber) was killed and another three were injured. The last suicide attack in Bangladesh was recorded on November 13, 2010, in which three persons, including the two attackers who carried the bomb and one civilian, were killed at Taragunia in Kushtia District.

On December 13, 2015, ruling out the existence of IS in Bangladesh, Hasina observed, "There's no IS in Bangladesh. So far probes into the [recent] incidents [killings] have revealed that their [killers] motives were primarily domestic. Our law enforcement agencies have demonstrated their considerable success in arresting some of the killers of bloggers and foreign nationals.” Similarly, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan on December 16, 2015, reiterated, “We are saying always, our Prime Minister also asserts that there is no IS here. We are trying to control such militant groups that are trying to surface.”

Among the more established of the terror outfits operating inside Bangladesh, JMB militants on November 4, 2015, stabbed to death Constable Mukul Hossain and injured four other Policemen when they tried to stop JMB militants at a checkpoint on the Dhaka-Tangail Highway in Savar, an industrial suburb some 30 kilometers from Dhaka. Further, on December 10, 2015, two people were injured when JMB militants launched a bomb attack on the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) Temple in Dinajpur District. Seven JMB militants were arrested when Police neutralized their hideout in the Mirpur area in Dhaka city on December 24, 2015. 17 improvised grenades, explosives with which about 200 such grenades could be made, and a sack-full of suicide vests were recovered. Another JMB den was discovered and neutralized on December 26, 2015, in the Aminbazar area of Chittagong District. Three JMB terrorists were arrested with one MK 11 precision semi-automatic sniper rifle, five kilograms of explosive gel, 13 military uniforms, 252 rounds of ammunition and 25 detonators.

Earlier, exposing the link between JeI, the largest Islamist party of Bangladesh, and JMB, Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) Joint Commissioner Monirul Islam stated, on November 26, 2015, “At least one-fourth of banned militant outfit JMB members are former Jamaat-e-Islami members and are now involved in acts of destruction across the country. The new members are also reportedly financing JMB's terror and criminal acts. JMB members are using the money to buy motorcycles, explosives and ammunition to commit crimes.” Further, the Police’s Detective Branch (DB) claimed, on December 29, 2015, that JMB was planning countrywide attacks on March 25, 2016, a day before the country’s Independence Day.

Despite these simmering, the Government has continued its policy of containing Islamist extremist forces through 2015. A total of 1,888 extremists and terrorists, including 1,729 cadres of JeI and its students’ wing Islami Chhatra Shibir (ICS), 83 of the JMB, 16 each of Hizb-ut-Tahrir (HuT) and ABT, 12 of AQIS, nine of Harkat-ul-Jihad-al Islami Bangladesh (HuJI-B), eight of Shaeed Hamja Brigade (SHB), six of Mujahid of Bangladesh, two each of Bangladesh Jihadi Group (BJG) and the HeI, and five who were engaged in IS propaganda and recruitment were arrested.

Significantly, on January 20, 2016, Singapore deported a batch of 26 Bangladeshi construction workers, with Singapore’s Home Ministry stating that the deportees “supported the armed jihad ideology of terrorist groups like Al Qaeda and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.” Bangladesh Police charged 14 of them, while 12 were released in Bangladesh after questioning. Bangladesh has, however, denied their links with Al Qaeda and IS, claiming that those charged were, "linked with banned Islamist militant group Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT)," according to Bangladesh Police spokesman Maruf Hussain Sarder’s statement of January 21, 2016.

Dhaka has also continued its campaign against the Left Wing Extremist (LWE) movement. Through 2015, 17 LWE cadres were killed including 10 of the Purbo Banglar Communist Party (PBCP), three of the Biplobi Communist Party (BCP), two of the Gono Mukti Fauj (GMF), one each of the Purbo Banglar Sarbahara Party (PBSP) and the Alfu Bahini. No civilian or SF fatality took place in LWE-linked violence through 2015. 16 LWE cadres were killed in 2014 as well, with no civilian or SF fatality recorded.

In an effort to shore up capacities against terrorism, the “Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime” unit, a 600-men Police Force specializing in technology, was formed on December 31, 2015, under the Dhaka Metropolitan Police.

The AL-led Government’s achievements on the counter-terrorism and internal security fronts have been remarkable. But, the frequent attacks and periodic discovery of terrorist cells and hideouts, with stockpiles of weapons and explosives, particularly in Dhaka city and the Chittagong District, indicate continuous efforts by terrorists to reorganize in spaces created by the polarized politics of the country.

Civilians

Security Force Personnel

Terrorists/Insurgents

Total

Bangladesh

Left Wing Extremists

INDIA

Jammu and Kashmir

Meghalaya

Left-Wing Extremism

Bihar

Chhattisgarh

Jharkhand

Odisha

Total (INDIA)

PAKISTAN

Balochistan

FATA

KP

Punjab

Sindh

Total (PAKISTAN)