The Naxal siege on Bihar’s Jehanabad Jail

Background:

The Naxal Insurgency is an ongoing conflict between members of the Naxal-Maoist movement and the security forces of the Indian Government.

1967 May 24 – Naxalbari Village, West Bengal. The Naxal Insurgency marks it’s birth. Charu Majumdar, Kanu Sanyal organize an ambush on a police convoy moving to arrest rural leaders after an altercation with Landlords.

1968 – During these years, members of the Naxal movement traced their roots to the CPI-M Party, whose leaders strongly supported the activities of the naxal wing. When the CPI-M Party cam into power in Bengal however, they withdrew support from the Naxal movement.

The movement received support from China’s Mao Zedong, who urged Naxal leaders to continue their struggle and overthrow the Government, replacing it with a Communist one.

1971 – The movement gains more and more followers. Particularly among the radical sections of the student movement in Calcutta

1971 July – With President’s Rule in effect is Bengal, Operation Steeplchase is put into effect by Indira Gandhi. A massive military operation against the Naxal threat kills hundred of Militants, and arrests thousands of suspects. Few records of the operation were maintained. Even army orders were not given in writing.

1972 July 16 – Charu Majumdar is taken into Police custody.

1972 July 28 – Charu Majumdar dies in Police Custody at Alipore Jail. He is believed to have been tortured to death.

2004 – Naxal numbers are estimated to be 9300. with over 6000 assorted firearms.

2010 Apr 06 – The Dantewada Ambush. Considered the worst Naxal attack in history. A group of 80 jawans of the CRPF’s 62 Battalion were returning from an “Area Domination” Exercise in Chhattisgarh, when 300 Naxal militants ambushed the convoy. 67 jawans and 8 maoists die in the ensuing firefight.

2011 Nov 24 – Mallojula Koteswara Rao (Leader of the CPI-M’s armed wing) is killed in a confrontation with Indian security forces.

2012 Mar – Naxals abduct two Italians. The first case of foreigners being effected by the Naxal Insurgency.

2013 May 25 – Darbha Valley attack. Maoist forces attack a rally organized by the Indian National Congress. Party leaders Mahendra Karma, Vidya Charan Shukla and Nand Kumar Patel are killed.

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Whether by co-incidence or not, a week after the Anniversary of the Bolshevik October Revolutions (A Socialist revolution in Russia), approximately One thousand naxal combatants laid siege to the town of Jehanabad, some forty kilometers from Patna (capital of Bihar state). The assault lasted three hours, during which control of the entire town was seemingly lost.

Police and Security personnel were on mass deployments in other parts of the state for Election duty. The Jail and the town itself were understaffed at the time of the attack.

At 21:00, under cover of darkness, the attack was launched simultaneously across the town. The Police Stations in Kako, Sakurabad and Ghosi were attacked (In a bid to prevent them from responding to distress calls from the Jail). A College where several Electronic Voting Machines had been stocked was also attacked.

The jail was attacked by militants dressed in police uniforms and it’s gates opened. They remained open into the late hours of the morning of the 14th.

A wounded Naxal combatant, found alive, was rushed to Patna Medical College and Hospital, in a critical condition. Police stated that he provided vital intelligence. I do not know what happened to him, however.

Several live explosives and clothes were found around the jail.

The Armory inside was looted and upwards of 200 rifles were unaccounted for.

Four Policemen, a jailed leader of the Ranvir Sena and two naxal militants were killed.

The real tragedy came in the 341 inmates who were released from the Prison. Escapees included several jailed Maoist leaders and combatants, including Ajay Kanu (Believed to be the second in command of the Naxal Organization. He was arrested again on the 2nd of February, 2007 in Patna)

20 members of the Ranvir Sena were also abducted by Naxal forces.

What is most troubling about the whole matter is the fact that this is no small police station in a distant far flung corner of a dense jungle. This is a supposedly high security installation located just 40 kilometers from a State Capital that was at the time holding several important inmates.

Despite all of this, security appears to have been lax, to say the least.

For starters there was no Jail Superintendent present when the attack took place and despite November 11th’s attack by Naxal forces on a Home Guard Training Center in Giridh, Jarkhand and the imprisonment of a high ranking Maoist leader, there was no additional security there, or even on stand-by.

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AFTER the attack ended, the Government decided to send in two companies of National Security Guard Commandos into Bihar.

The Superintendent of Police was also suspended, much to the chagrin of the Police.

To what end these measures were taken is beyond me. If anyone had to have been sacked it should have been the top brass at the Intelligence Bureaus. But of course the people truly at fault are rarely punished.

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The Naxal threat has been receding in recent years, but with chronic poverty, and severe injustices meted out to the poorest of the poor, in rural regions, it is frankly not surprising that such uprisings happen.

Thousand of poor people in distant jungles and farmlands are displaced each year, their land confiscated by government order. They are paid of course. But what do they understand of the compensation of money in exchange for land that has been theirs for centuries?

Naxalism is a monster created by the very people now fighting them.