South Asia Terrorism Portal
Naxalites: The Economy at Risk Nihar Nayak Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management "We will come back soon." This was the message left in Telugu by the Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) activists after their attack on the 9th Battalion of the Karnataka State Reserve police (KSRP) camp on the night of February 11. Six police personnel and a civilian were killed and five others injured when an estimated 300 Naxalites (Left Wing extremists), including some 50 women, attacked the KSRP camp with hand grenades, bombs and AK 47 assault rifles at Venkammanahalli under Pavagada revenue division of Karnataka's Tumkur district 130 kilometers from the State capital, Bangalore. The Naxalites took away 10 self-loading rifles, while six unexploded bombs and some grenades were subsequently recovered from the compound. A landmine was also spotted by a police rescue team at Kyatacherlu, an adjacent village, under a bridge on the main road leading to the spot where a tractor had been parked to block the security force (SF) movement. After the Naxalites exchanged fire with the police at Venkatammanahalli in April 2003, a platoon of the KSRP has been deployed in Tumkur as the extremists were frequenting the border villages.
The attack came five days after the police shot dead a top Naxalite leader, Saketh Rajan, and his associate in the Kallugudde forests in Chikmagalur district on February 6. Interestingly, the Chief Minister of Karnataka, Dharam Singh, had ordered an investigation into Rajan's killing after human rights activists charged the police with faking the encounter. Over the past five years, Naxalite activities have increased in the districts surrounding Bangalore city - India's 'Silicon Valley'. Both Tumkur and Kolar districts share borders with Andhra Pradesh, and are situated to the North and East of Bangalore, respectively. The Naxalites have been active in both districts since the 1980's. They also have a strong presence in the Pavagada taluk (revenue division), 130 kilometers from Bangalore, where leaders such as Yenti Muthyalappa and Kurubara Banadiah contributed to the growth of the movement. To the West of the city, the Naxalites have increased their activities in the Malnad region of the Western Ghats, comprising five districts: Shimoga, Udupi, Chikmagalur, Dakshin Kannada, and Hassan. Though initial Naxalite activity was concentrated in Tumkur, Kolar, Bidar, Gulbarga, and Raichur districts, they have progressively extended their base in the Western Ghats. In June 2001, coordinated agitations by various organisations, including the Kudremukh Rashtriya Udyana Virodhi Okkuta, Karnataka Vimochana Ranga, and Nagarika Seva Trust, against the eviction of tribal people from the Kudremukh National Park (KNP) area helped the then People's War Group (PWG) to establish its base by taking up the cause of the tribal people. In addition to the park issue, 'exploitation' by the landlords was another issue that helped the Naxalites to expand their activities. The southern part of Bangalore city shares its borders with the Dharmapuri district of Tamil Nadu, which has been under Naxalite influence for the past two decades. While the movement was substantially contained through the 1980's, it had regained strength by November 2002, when the authorities conducted a major crackdown. In addition to Dharmapuri, the Naxalites have a presence in at least another three districts in Tamil Nadu: Salem, Coimbatore and Madurai. On October 10, 2004, the Tamil Nadu Government had banned the PWG under the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1908, in order to protect its territories from infiltration by extremist cadres from neighboring states such as Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. Dharmapuri's strategic location appears to be a compelling factor in the Naxalites' choice of the district for their operations. Following the killing of six of its policemen at Venkammanahalli, the Karnataka Government has identified 33 police stations across 10 districts in the State as "hyper sensitive and vulnerable" to attack by the extremists. Of these, 23 are spread across seven districts - Bidar, Gulbarga, Raichur, Bellary, Chitradurga, Tumkur and Kolar - which border Andhra Pradesh. Police Chiefs of these districts have been directed to declare a red alert in the areas within their jurisdiction and to fortify police stations. The remaining 10 police stations are spread across Shimoga, Chikmagalur and Udupi districts in the western part of the State. The economic impact of the Naxalite rampage is potentially devastating. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, on a visit to Bangalore on February 12, expressed concern over the growth of Naxalite activities in the country and accepted that Left Wing extremism was gaining momentum in Central India. He noted, further, that these were the "areas where the greater part of India's mineral resources, hydroelectric and other resources are located". US Ambassador to India, David Mulford, recently expressed concern that the growing Naxalite violence in the country could hit the inflow of foreign investments in the country. Among India's southern States, Tamil Nadu tops the list for foreign direct investment (FDI), followed by Karnataka. Unsurprisingly, despite the hype about 'Cyberabad', Andhra Pradesh is not in the list of top five FDI destinations in the India. Karnataka, the second largest FDI recipient in the country, approved 934 FDI proposals worth Rupees 7,826 crore (Rs 78.26 billion) during the year 2003. However, it slipped to the fourth rank in 2004. If trend in the proliferation of violence continue, India's target of US$ 15 billion in FDI in the year 2005 may not materialize. On February 9, 2005, Union Minister of Commerce & Industry, Kamal Nath, sought FDI into the country's sluggish infrastructure sector and reiterated Prime Minister's assessment that India would require an investment of at least US$150 billion over the next 5-10 years to upgrade its infrastructure. According to the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) FDI Survey, 2004, "While the outlook for FDI inflows into India in the near to medium term remains positive, security and terrorism concerns weigh heavily on the minds of foreign investors." In addition to the activities of Indian Naxalites around Bangalore, the presence of the Young Communist League (YCL), a front organisation of the Communist Party of Nepal - Maoist (CPN-M) appears to be active in Bangalore. Slogans such as "Long live YCL Nepal" and "Maobad Zindabad (Long Live Maoism), Communist Party of Nepal" have been found plastered on the walls in various localities, including the Lalbagh West Gate. Sources indicate that YCL has been collecting funds in India and was mobilizing Nepali students and workers for its activities. Ram Charan Shresta, a Kathmandu-based ideologue of the YCL, who is also believed to be linked with Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), coordinates the Indian operations. A former Chief of the Karnataka Police Anti-Terrorist Squad has claimed that the Nepali Maoists were in league with the Naxalites of the PWG. Such linkages and activities, while they are yet to translate into violence, can only further undermine investor confidence in Karnataka, and particularly in Bangalore. Unfortunately, there appears to be little coherence in India's response to this challenge, and the wider problem of the rampaging growth of Left Wing extremism across large parts of the country. Over the past year, the Naxalites have been extending their areas of activity at the rate of an average of two districts each week, and have gone from just 55 districts in nine States in November 2003, to as many as 170 districts in 15 States by February 2005. In just the past 44 days, 106 persons - 32 civilians, 32 security personnel, and 42 extremists - have been killed in Naxalite-related violence, much of it directly connected with the call for a boycott of the Assembly elections in Bihar and Jharkhand. In Jharkhand, some of the Naxalite affected districts experienced a voter turnover of just 29 per cent, among the worst ever in the State. Nevertheless, the official response continues to be lack-lustre, and Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee on January 29, had said that the Naxalite violence in the country was "manageable". But efforts to 'manage' this 'manageable' problem are riven with contradictions. In Andhra Pradesh, the Greyhounds, a special force of the Andhra Pradesh Police, had cornered CPI-Maoist State secretary, Ramakrishna, and a number of other Naxalite leaders in the Nallamala forests in the Prakasam-Kurnool district border on February 3, 2005. Some frantic lobbying by sympathizers and front organizations in Hyderabad resulted in political intervention that forced the compliant Police to pull back and allow the extremists to walk free. The nexus between political parties and the Naxalites has been crucial to the long-term survival of this extremist movement, as well as to its extension over widening territories. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has now issued a call for a 'comprehensive strategy' to tackle the Naxalites. Regrettably, there is little evidence that the present regime at New Delhi or, for that matter, in any of the capitals of the affected States, have the political acumen or strategic foresight to deal effectively with this growing challenge.
Education Reform: Fundamentalist Fury Guest Writer: Mohammad Shehzad Islamabad-based freelance writer After seizing power through a dramatic coup d'état, General Pervez Musharraf initiated several reforms in various areas, including education. To improve it, Musharraf signed an executive order (the Presidential Ordinance of November 8, 2002; CXIV/2002) inducting the Aga Khan University Examination Board (AKUEB) into the national education system.
The AKUEB was selected for this assignment due to its outstanding track record. Over the years, the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) has emerged as one of the most effective association of Community Based Organizations (CBOs) in Pakistan, and has changed the lives of large numbers of people in the remotest areas of Pakistan, including the Northern Areas, where no Government agency has ever undertaken any development work. The AKUEB has been given the task of upgrading and modernizing the declining standards of education and of holding examinations for private educational institutions. The affiliation of these institutions to the Board is voluntary. The Board has not been given any role in Government schools, and the system is also intended to help groom teachers in private educational institutions with excellent skills through training. The AKUEB would bring modern examinations, both in English and Urdu, at an affordable cost to a much broader section of society, providing parents and schools an option in the style of education they desire from classes IX to XII. Until now, such a choice was confined to a very few who could afford the O Levels fees. The AKUEB follows the British education system of O and A levels. O levels are designed for students from 14 to 16 years old and are aimed at preparing them for academic progression and equipping them with skills necessary for employment. A Level is designed to prepare them for university and other professional fields of study. Both levels emphasize broad choices of subjects, covering the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences and other creative technical and vocational qualifications. A National Examination Testing Service has been constituted and the Government educational boards have agreed to entertain applications from students who take examinations under the AKUEB. These examinations are expected to start in 2006. Musharraf's initiatives on this count have been greeted as a step in the right direction by the enlightened section of Pakistani society. However, the rightwing groups (jihadis, Islamists, clerics, fundamentalists, and religious extremists) - a powerful minority in Pakistan by whom the mainstream is held hostage - has launched a virulent campaign against these reforms. A wide range of facilities are available to these groups for the propagation of their venomous propaganda, including the jihadi media, pulpits and loudspeakers at mosques, and public rallies [which are not allowed for mainstream politics but are permitted for jihad and fassad (evil)]. The jihadi Press - comprising dozens of publications with a collective circulation in millions - has started a concentrated smear campaign against the Ismaeli (Aga Khani) community, with at least some mainstream publications, such as Nawa-i-Waqt and The Nation, supporting the fundamentalist in this campaign. The jihadi Press is cranking out highly inflammatory and provocative material against the Prince Karim Aga Khan, the Ismaelis, AKUEB and AKDN in an attempt to present the Ahmadis and the Ismaelis as two sides of the same coin. Jihadi leaders have issued statement after statement demonizing the Ahmadis and the Ismaelis. Crossing all limits of decency and diplomacy, the rabid Islamist Qazi Hussain Ahmad - often referred to as a 'Pakistani Bal Thackeray' - launched a direct attack on Prince Karim Aga Khan. The Qazi was the first to spearhead the campaign against the Ismaelis, linking them to the Ahmadis, the most persecuted sect in Pakistan. Weekly Ghazwa - a publication of the defunct Lashkar-e-Taiba - in its May 6, 2004, issue quoted Qazi as saying: "If the Prince Karim Aga Khan tried to interfere in our curriculum, I will make his end miserable. In fact, his end would be even worse than the Ahmadis." A diplomat chastised Qazi at a social gathering for this threat. (The Friday Times; June 3, 2004). The jihadis accuse the AKDN of receiving a 'bribe' of $45 million as grant from the US for 'perverting' Pakistan's education system by 'spreading nudity and obscenity' and 'introducing a free-sex environment'. To support their claim, the jihadis have distorted and exaggerated a health survey by the Aga Khan Nursing School. The Daily Jasarat, on May 9, 2004, declaimed:
Every jihadi publication has been distorting this questionnaire according to its own indoctrination policy. Outperforming all others, Weekly Ghazwa (December 23, 2004) reported:
Aga Khan Board has circulated a questionnaire among the students under the title, 'Health Survey'. The questionnaire asks the students the following obscene and immoral questions:
These questions pervert the young minds. These questions are asked from the students of the 9th and 10th grade. You can well imagine from the above questions that it is a conspiracy to introduce immoral values in our Islamic society. There is no doubt that the Aga Khan Board is working at the behest of the Jews, Hindus and Christians and its mission is to pervert our coming generations.
The scope of the education reforms controversy widened when Hafiz Mohammad Saeed (the supremo of the defunct Laskhar-e-Taiba, LeT) joined issue. In the internet edition of Weekly Ghazwa (November 4, 2004), Saeed said: "Musharraf is working on making the Northern Areas an Aga Khani state. He has been pressured by Christina Rocca to hand over Kashmir to Prince Karim Aga Khan so that he could annex it with the Northern Areas and make it his fiefdom." The propaganda against Ismaelis has intensified to such an extent that now Aga Khanis are being condemned for most of the developments taking place in Pakistan, including Pakistan's privatization policy.
The jihadis have also begun to blame Prince Karim Aga Khan for the sectarian violence in Gilgit. Thus, the Weekly Takbeer in its cover story (Jan 26, 2005) wrote:
The jihadis have also fabricated a number of opinion polls against Ismaelis. Thus the Daily Jasaratreported on December 19, 2004:
The United Students Front (USF) - a union of jihadi students - has threatened to attack Parliament if AKF's involvement in the education was not ended. The USF's president, Sahibzada Babar Farooq Rahimi, has said that the students will not hesitate to sacrifice their lives if the decision to hand over the education board to AKF was not reversed. It is useful to note that the Aga Khanis have nothing to do with the curriculum or with the Ahmadia community. But the jihadis have launched a massive propaganda war to demonize them, and the result, in at least one case, was that the AKDN's offices and its aid workers have been attacked in Gilgit and NWFP in the recent past. Pakistan's poorly educated people are so influenced by this propaganda that they have come to view the Government's education reforms as a conspiracy against Islam. The extremists' propaganda has substantially succeeded in projecting the following perspectives:
The jihadis have long considered America, India, Israel and Ahmadis as the worst evils. Musharraf's education reforms have given them a new entity to demonize: the Ismaelis, and there is urgent need to counter their venomous propaganda. Unfortunately, the Government's own orientation has compounded the problem. Ali Tauqeer Sheikh, a civil society representative who heads one of the largest networks for sustainable development in Pakistan, LEAD (Leadership for Environment and Development), notes:
BANGLADESH
INDIA
Assam
Jammu & Kashmir
Left-wing Extremism
Manipur
Tripura
Total (INDIA)
NEPAL
PAKISTAN
SRI LANKA
Six police personnel killed by Naxalites in Karnataka: Six police personnel and a civilian were killed when suspected left-wing extremists (also known as Naxalites) of the Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) attacked a Karnataka State Reserve Police camp at Venkammanahalli in the Tumkur district of Karnataka on February 11, 2005. State police chief, S N Borkar, said "It is definitely the handiwork of Naxalites." The Naxalite attack comes a few days after their top leader, Saketh Rajan alias Prem, was shot dead by police during an encounter along with another associate in the Chikamagalur district on February 6. Police suspect that the incident was in retaliation to the Chikamagalur operation. Indian Express, February 12, 2005. Senior National Conference leader shot dead in Srinagar: A group of terrorists shot dead the elected member of National Conference (NC) and would-be Mayor of Srinagar, Mohammad Maqbool Shah Khaksaar, in the capital's Jawahar Nagar area on February 9, 2005. His assassination came a day after the killing of People's Democratic Party's elected member and would-be chairman of the Beerwah Municipal Committee in Budgam district, Ghulam Mohiuddin Mir. Daily Excelsior, February 10, 2005.
Five soldiers killed and 150 prisoners escape during Maoist attack in Kailali district: At least five security force (SF) personnel were killed and over 150 inmates at the District Prison near Triveni Chowk in Kailali have escaped following clashes between Maoist insurgents and SFs on February 8, 2005. Around 700-800 heavily armed insurgents are reported to have attacked the District Police Office, Regional Police Office and the branch of Nepal Rashtra Bank in Dhangadhi. Reports said a total of 168 inmates, including central leader of the Maoists, Tilak Sharma alias Himal, regional leaders, Krishna Prasad Bhattarai and Ram Prasad Timilsena, were inside the prison during the time of clashes, even as 17 inmates have reported back to the authorities after the clashes. Later, bodies of two Maoists were recovered from the incident site. Nepal News, February 9, 2005.
Terrorists have blown up 26 power towers in Balochistan during the last 25 days: Terrorists have blown up about 26 transmission towers in Balochistan province during the last 25 days causing a loss of over Rupees 20 million to the National Transmission and Dispatch Company (NTDC). The Chief Executive of NTDC, Mohammad Shabir, said at a press conference in Lahore on February 11, 2005, that the company was anticipating more bomb blasts and had arranged extra towers and other material to cope up with any future emergency. Jang, February 12, 2005. Weapons worth Rupees 500 million came from Afghanistan, says Balochistan Governor: The Balochistan Governor, Owais Ahmed Ghani, said on February 8, 2005, that modern weapons were used during the January 2005 attacks at the Sui gas plant and added that weapons worth Rupees 500 million were brought from Afghanistan for terrorism. In an interview to Geo TV, he said that the Sui attack was not merely a reaction to the gang rape of a lady doctor and added that more than 600 rockets and multi barrel rocket launchers at Sui showed it was not a masses' protest. GEO Pakistan News, February 9, 2005. Baitullah Mehsud and 35 others get Government amnesty in South Waziristan: Tribal militant leader, Baitullah Mehsud, signed a peace deal with the Government in South Waziristan on February 7, 2005, as he laid down arms during a ceremony at Sararogha. Associated Press reported that the ceremony was held in an open field surrounded by Taliban cadres shouting "Death to America" and "Allah-o-Akbar" (God is great) as Baitullah, a 30-year-old 'commander', signed the agreement along with 35 of his supporters. Baitullah claimed that the Taliban did not want to fight Pakistan. "We understand fighting against Pakistani security forces did not help the Taliban at all… Pakistan has also realised that fighting tribal people is weakening its ability. Pakistan's enemy are India, the Northern Alliance and Russia," said Baitullah. Under the agreement, Baitullah cannot shelter or support foreign terrorists, nor can he attack Government installations. If Baitullah or his supporters violate the agreement, the Government will take action against him, the report stipulated. Daily Times, February 8, 2005.
LTTE Eastern Political wing leader Kaushalyan and five persons killed in Batticaloa: The Eastern Political wing leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), Kaushalyan, his deputy Nedimaran along with three other LTTE cadres and Ariyanayagam Chandra Nehru, ex-Tamil National Alliance Member of Parliament for the Amparai district, were killed during an ambush at Poonani in the Batticaloa district on February 7, 2005. Kaushalyan and his associates were reportedly returning after inspecting a camp for victims displaced by the tsunami in the area, when the ambush occurred. The Tamil National Force (TNF), a para-military group under the joint command of the leader of the breakaway LTTE faction, Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan alias 'Colonel Karuna, and the Eelam National Democratic Liberation Front, on February 10 claimed responsibility for Kaushalyan's killing. The Hindu, February 11, 2005; Daily News, February 8, 2005.
The South Asia Intelligence Review (SAIR) is a weekly service that brings you regular data, assessments and news briefs on terrorism, insurgencies and sub-conventional warfare, on counter-terrorism responses and policies, as well as on related economic, political, and social issues, in the South Asian region.
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