SOUTH ASIA INTELLIGENCE REVIEW
Weekly Assessments & Briefings
Volume 15, No. 18, October 31, 2016

PAKISTAN

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Balochistan: Reaping the Whirlwind
Tushar Ranjan Mohanty
Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management

At least 61 Security Force (SF) personnel were killed, and another 164 were injured as terrorists stormed the New Sariab Police Training College (PTC), some 13 kilometres from Quetta, the provincial capital of Balochistan, in the night of October 24, 2016. Three militants entered the PTC and headed straight for the hostel, where around 700 Police recruits were sleeping. The attack began at around 11:10 pm, with gunfire continuing to ring out at the site for several hours. Major causalities were inflicted when two suicide bombers blew themselves up. One of the militants wearing suicide vest was killed by the SFs. 250 cadets who were held hostage were rescued by the SFs. SFs were able to clear the area after five hours. Entry and exit routes to the area were opened for traffic the next morning. 

There has been a multiplicity of claims among terrorist groups for responsibility of this high-profile attack. The Hakimullah faction of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) declared, “TTP Hakimullah group’s Karachi unit was behind the attack”, adding that four of its militants were involved. However, Major General Sher Afghan, chief of the paramilitary Frontier Corps in Balochistan, which led the response operation, claimed that the terrorists belonged to the Al-Alami (international) faction of the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) – which is affiliated to the TPP, adding, “They were in communication with operatives in Afghanistan.” The Daesh (Islamic State, IS) also claimed responsibility and released photos of the fighters involved, one of whom bore a strong resemblance to an attacker who was killed by SFs in the assault.

On the same day, elsewhere in the Province, unidentified terrorists shot dead two Pakistan Customs’ officials in the Shamsabad area of Mastung District. A third customs official was critically wounded in the armed attack. Captain (Retd.) Farraukh Atiq, Deputy Commissioner of Mastung District, stated, “Armed men opened fire at a customs vehicle in the Shamsabad area of Mastung city.” The terrorists escaped from the scene of the attack without facing any resistance.

On October 23, 2016, two Pakistan Coast Guard personnel were killed while two civilians were injured by unidentified armed assailants in the Jiwani Bazaar area of Gwadar District in Balochistan. No outfit claimed responsibility for the attack.

On October 14, 2016, three Frontier Corps (FC) personnel were shot dead in the Sabzal Road area of Quetta. According to Police sources, suspected militants opened fire at the FC men. Two men died on the spot, whereas the third succumbed to his injuries on the way to hospital. The attackers escaped unharmed. There has been no claim of responsibility for the attack.

Between October 14, 2016 and October 24, 2016, the Province has thus recorded 68 SF fatalities. There has been a rise in violence against Security Force (SF) personnel in Balochistan since the beginning of the current year. According to partial data compiled by the Institute for Conflict Management (ICM), Balochistan has recorded at least 145 SF fatalities between January and October 2016, as against 82 such fatalities during the corresponding period of 2015, an increase of 76.82 per cent.

Significantly, out of the 145 SF personnel killed in 2016, 126 were killed in Northern Balochistan, while the remaining 19 were killed in Southern Balochistan. As has been noted in the past , the North is afflicted by Islamist extremist groups such as TTP and LeJ; the Baloch insurgent groups operate in the South. The major Baloch insurgent groups include the Baloch Republican Army (BRA), Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), Balochistan Liberation Tigers (BLT) and United Baloch Army (UBA).  

A North-South breakup of SF fatalities over the last six years indicate that SF fatalities in North Balochistan are consistently higher than South Balochistan, while extra-judicial killings of civilians account for a large proportion of the killings in South Balochistan.

Though the number of civilian fatalities in 2016, till end-October, stood at 191, down from 247 through 2015, extra judicial killings by State agencies and their proxies in Southern Balochistan remained rampant. Through 2016, at least 191 civilians were killed in Balochistan, of which some 86 were attributable to one or other militant outfit. The remaining 105 ‘unattributed’ fatalities are overwhelmingly the work of the State apparatus and its surrogates. Of the 3,758 civilian fatalities recorded in Balochistan since 2004 [data till October 30, 2016], at least 999 civilian killings are attributable to one or other militant outfit. Of these, 361 civilian killings (205 in the South and 156 in the North) have been claimed by Baloch separatist formations, while Islamist and sectarian extremist formations – primarily LeJ, TTP and Ahrar-ul-Hind (Liberators of India) – claimed responsibility for another 638 civilian killings, 631 in the North (mostly in and around Quetta) and seven in the South. The 363 civilian killings attributed to Baloch formations include at least 155 Punjabi settlers since 2006. The remaining 2,759 civilian fatalities – 1,667 in the South and 1,092 in the North – remain ‘unattributed’. A large proportion of the ‘unattributed’ fatalities, particularly in the Southern region, are believed to be the result of enforced disappearances carried out by state agencies, or by their proxies, prominently including the Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Aman Balochistan (TNAB, Movement for the Restoration of Peace, Balochistan). The large number of unattributed civilian fatalities strengthens the widespread conviction that Security Agencies engage in “kill and dump” operations against local Baloch dissidents, a reality that Pakistan’s Supreme Court has clearly recognized.

While the SFs are engaged in a systematic campaign of extermination of ethnic Baloch people through enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings, which continue unabated in the southern Districts of Balochistan, they are, in turn, frequently targeted by Islamist terrorist formations such as TTP and LeJ in the northern Districts. Though the number of incidents of attacks on SFs declined to 35 in 2016, in comparison to 55 the previous year, their lethality and intensity can be assessed by the October 24attack at the Quetta PTC. Some of the major attacks on SFs in the northern Balochistan in 2016 include:

January 13: At least 15 people, among them 13 Police personnel, an FC soldier and a civilian, were killed while another 25 were injured, when a suicide bomber blew himself up near a Government health centre in the Satellite Town area of Quetta.

January 18: Six FC personnel were killed and one was injured in an IED blast near FC's Margat Checkpoint in Quetta.

February 6: At least 12 persons, including four FC personnel, were killed and another 38 persons injured in a suicide blast in the Multan Chowk area of Quetta.

June 29: Four FC personnel were shot dead by unidentified armed assailants on Double Road in Quetta.

After the attack of the night of October 24 at the PTC, the Balochistan Government seems to have lost faith in the capacity of Federal Forces, and had demanded the restoration of pre-1958 powers under the Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR) to curb crimes and prevent acts of terror in the Province. “The provincial administration has no legal powers in Balochistan that has become a war zone (sic),” Home Secretary Mohammad Akbar told a meeting of the Senate’s Functional Committee on Human Rights, adding, “Balochistan has become a cocktail of insurgencies, religious extremism and other criminal activities. We cannot hide that the system has failed in Balochistan.

SFs in Balochistan have been reaping what they had sown over past decades. The TTP and LeJ are both products of the sustained strategy of State supported terrorism, now gone rogue at the margins. While some feeble and fitful efforts are directed against Islamist terrorist formations in Balochistan, this strategy continues to provide spaces to Taliban and al Qaeda related formations which are hosted in the Province and directed against Afghanistan, and that are ideologically indistinguishable from the Pakistan-directed ‘renegade’ groupings.

On the other hand, overwhelming and indiscriminate force is deployed against the Baloch separatists in the south of the Province, where gross human right violations and forced disappearances are endemic. Islamabad deploys disproportionate and lawless force to suppress all Baloch dissidence, including political activists raising genuine grievances, despite the fact that the Forces engaged in the ‘fight against terror’ have lost far more personnel to Islamist groupings in the north than to Baloch insurgents in the south.

On August 30,2016, on the occasion of the International Day for Enforced Disappearance, consequently, the Voice for Baloch Missing Persons (VBMP) once again invited the attention of political parties, human rights organizations, the judiciary and the international community, urging them to investigate the “catastrophic human rights abuses in Balochistan,” ‘’

Balochistan has, over the past months, secured somewhat greater attention at international fora than was the case in the past, but there appears to be little possibility of any measurable impact of such limited initiatives on the bloodied ground of the Province. Indeed, Pakistan continues to find willing dupes in the international community and the comity of nations, who are eager to go along with Islamabad’s twisted narrative that the country is a ‘victim of terrorism’, suppressing the increasingly obvious reality that this is a terrorism created and sustained against others by the Pakistani State, and that its domestic outbursts are nothing more than a ‘blowback’ of its own continuing global malfeasance.  

INDIA

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Maoists: Shock in a 'Safe Haven'
Deepak Kumar Nayak
Research Assistant, Institute for Conflict Management

In the most successful operation ever conducted by the Security Forces (SFs) against the Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist), since the formation of the outfit in September 2004, SFs killed at least 24 CPI-Maoist cadres in two successive encounters in the Bejingi forest area, between Ramgarh and Panasput, in the Malkangiri District of Odisha on October 24, 2016. One Greyhound [the elite anti-Maoist force of the Andhra Pradesh (AP) Police] commando, Mohammed Abu Bakar, was also killed during the operation, while another commando was injured. A large quantity of arms and ammunition, including four AK-47 rifles, 10.303 rifles, three Self-Loading Rifles (SLRs), two INSAS (Indian Small Arms System) rifles, and four SBBL (Smooth Bore Breech Loading) guns were recovered from the encounter site. Police also recovered about 50 kit bags, one laptop, INR 216,000 in cash and a large quantity of Maoist literature. Another four Maoists were killed during the subsequent combing operation in the same area on October 25. Two Maoists were also killed in the same area on October 27, yielding a total of 30 Maoists killed in a quick succession of SF operations in the region.   

Following a tip-off about movement of the Maoists in the area which falls along the Andhra Pradesh-Odisha Border (AOB), Odisha Police sought the help of the AP Police and, subsequently, a combined team of AP Police, Greyhounds, Odisha Police Special Operations Group (SOG) and the District Volunteer Force (DVF, mostly comprising ex-service men) carried out the operation. Between 50 and 60 Maoists were reportedly holding a ‘plenary session’, which was also attended by the Maoist Central Committee (CC) member Akkiraju Hargopal aka Ramakrishna aka RK, the ‘secretary’ of the Andhra-Odisha Border Special Zonal Committee (AOBSZC) and overall in-charge of Maoist activity in the region. The Maoists had assembled there to discuss their tactical counter offensive campaign (TCOC) against the SFs and were reportedly planning ‘something big’ to revive their movement in the region.

On October 26, 2016, Odisha State Home Secretary, Asit Tripathy disclosed that, of the 28 bodies recovered by the Police, 18 had been identified. Those killed included Bakuri Venkata Ramana Murthy aka Ganesh aka Prasad aka Ramireddy, ‘official spokesman’ of AOBSZC and ‘secretary’ of east division unit of the party; Chemella Krishnaiah aka Bhaskar aka Daya, 'secretary' of the Koraput-Srikakulam 'joint division' of the AOBSZC; Gamelli Kesava Rao aka Birsu, ‘area commander’ of First Central Regional Committee (CRC) and ‘divisional committee secretary’ of the Koraput-Srikakulam ‘division’; Anna Parthi Dasu aka Madhu (50), member of the inner protection team around Bakuri Venkata Ramana Murthy and ‘divisional committee member’ (DCM), technical team of West Godavari; Geddam Suvarnaraju aka Kiran (38), brother-in-law of Madhu; Prabhakar Kapukka alias PKM aka Devendra, DCM; Latha aka Jyothi aka Padma, DCM and wife of Dubashi Shankar aka Mahendra, ‘Special Zonal Committee Member’, (SZCM), of the Hyderabad area; Rajesh aka Bimal, ‘area commander’ of First CRC and DCM from Chhattisgarh; Mamata aka Banajalas Nirmala aka Boddu Kundanalu Maru (DCM of Third CRC of the party and wife of Suresh, SZCM of the Srikakulam area); Yamalapalli Simhachalam aka Murali aka Krishna aka Hari, key member of Central Committee member RK’s protection team and DCM of the Vizianagaram District; Kameswari aka Swarna aka Swaroopa aka Ricky, part of cadre supply team and DCM of Pedabayalu; Kilo Sita aka Swetha, part of cadre supply team and ‘area committee member’ (ACM) of Pedabayalu; Budri, woman bodyguard of RK’s inner protection team and ACM from Chhattisgarh; and key members in RK’s security cordon, Munna aka Akkiraju Prithvi aka Shivaji (27), an ACM of Malkangiri’s cut-off area Local Guerrilla Squad (LGS), and Raino aka Sunil aka Jalmuri Srinu Babu, DCM of Third CRC of the party. Ganesh and Daya carried a reward of INR two million each.

The second most successful operation in terms of fatalities among Maoists across India was the November 23, 2010, incident in which 20 CPI-Maoist cadres were killed in an encounter with the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and State Police personnel near Aasrampura village of the Jagargunda area in the Dantewada District of Chhattisgarh. There were three earlier operations in which 20 Maoists had been killed: On February 17, 2008, at least 20 CPI-Maoist cadres were killed during ongoing combing operations by SFs in the border area of the Nayagarh-Ganjam-Kandhamal Districts of Odisha; on July 9, 2007, at least 24 SF personnel and 20 CPI-Maoist cadres were killed in a gun battle that occurred when a joint team of the CRPF and Chhattisgarh Police were combing the Elampatti-Regadgatta forest area of Dantewada District of Chhattisgarh; and on June 24, 2005, SFs killed at least 20 CPI-Maoist cadres during a nightlong operation in the East Champaran and Sheohar Districts of Bihar.

The most successful previous operation in the AOB region in terms of fatalities among Maoists had been carried out in September 2013, in Malkangiri District. On September 14, 2013, at least 14 Maoists were killed in an encounter with the State Police SOG and the DVF near Silakota village under the Podia Block of Malkangiri District. However, no senior Maoist leader was killed in that encounter. A CPI-Maoist ‘divisional committee’ member, identified as Rakesh, who was present at the encounter site, had managed to escape.

The AOB region comprises of nine Districts –East Godavari, Khammam, Srikakulam, Vishakhapatnam and Vizianagaram Districts of AP; and Gajapati, Koraput Malkangiri and Rayagada of Odisha. Presently, Khammam is a part of Telangana. Between September 21, 2004 and October 2016, the region witnessed at least 715 Maoist-related fatalities, including 298 civilians, 147 SFs and 270 Maoists. During the same period, 7,254 such fatalities, including 2,926 civilians, 1,847 SFs and 2,481 Maoists, had been recorded across India. The AOB region has thus accounted for almost 10 per cent of the total Maoist-related fatalities during this period across India.

The AOB region has long been one of the Maoists’ strongholds. A small part of the region situated at the tri-junction of three states – AP, Chhattisgarh and Odisha– acts as a bridge for the Maoists to cross freely from one State to the other. This served as a ‘safe haven’ for the Maoists, as the region’s difficult terrain made it tougher for SFs to carry out combing operations. According to an unnamed senior Police officer involved in anti-Maoist operations, “It is very difficult to enter the cut-off area located in AOB. The area is covered with thick forests and water bodies are in full spate during monsoon and now. Maoists who consider AOB as a safe zone conduct plenary and plenums during this chosen season (sic).”

The Maoist ‘movement’ is presently facing severe challenges across India due to various factors, the primary among which has been successful intelligence-based operations launched by SFs, and spearheaded by the AP Police Special Intelligence Branch (SIB) over the past years, which have helped neutralize top cadres among the extremists. According to the partial database compiled by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), between 2010 and 2016 (till October 30), at least 775 Maoist leadership elements have been neutralized (93 killed, 434 arrested, 248 surrendered). According to UMHA data, the total number of LWE cadres arrested between 2010 and 2015 stood at 11,608. During the same period at least 633 LWE cadres surrendered. From a peak of 1,180 Maoist-linked fatalities across India in 2010, the fatalities came down to 215 in 2015. Unsurprisingly, the ‘movement’ is also waning in the AOB region. Overall fatalities in Maoist violence in the region witnessed sharp decline from a peak of 93 in 2010 to 35 in 2015.

Meanwhile, the AP Government gave permission to private bauxite mining companies in the Vizianagaram and Visakhapatnam tribal belts of AP in 2008 to set up a mining-cum-refinery project. This irked the tribals and provided an opportunity to the Maoists to expand their base. They resorted to several abductions of public representatives and officials, including Vineel Krishna, the then District Collector of Malkangiri, in 2011, besides killing a few public representatives and Policemen in the border villages. The Maoists have also called for frequent shutdowns in the towns and villages of the AOB area and conducted ‘public meetings’ in the forests. Nevertheless, they have failed in their efforts to revive their ‘movement’.

Documents recovered at the encounter site in Malkangiri on October 24-25, 2016, indicate that the Maoists are deeply concerned about the status of their ‘movement’ in the AOB region and were desperate to do ‘something big’. The loss of leadership elements of the region during the encounter, however, has served a body blow to the outfit and will impact severely on their operational capabilities.

Civilians

Security Force Personnel

Terrorists/Insurgents

Total

BANGLADESH

Islamist Terrorism

Left-wing Extremism

Total (BANGLADESH)

INDIA

Assam

Jammu and Kashmir

Manipur

Meghalaya

Left-Wing Extremism

Chhattisgarh

Odisha

Total (INDIA)

PAKISTAN

Balochistan

FATA

Punjab

KP

Sindh

Total (PAKISTAN)