Maoists policy decision after Congress meet: Revanth
The Telangana government would take a call on holding peace talks with the Communist Party of India (Maoist) after discussing it with the Congress's national leadership, chief minister A Revanth Reddy said on Monday.
A day after the members of the state civil liberties committee and other social activists requested his intervention to put an end the ongoing 'Operation Kagar' by security forces in Chhattisgarh forests, Revanth Reddy held deliberations with senior Congress leader and former home minister K Jana Reddy to discuss the modalities of holding talks with the Maoists.
Advisors to the government, K Kesava Rao and Vem Narender Reddy also took part in the deliberations. The chief minister also spoke to AICC leader and former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Digvijay Singh over phone to discuss the Maoists issue, an official statement from the CMO said.
Speaking to reporters later, Revanth Reddy said the Congress, being a national party, was guided by its national policies. 'So, discussions on how to put an end to the killing of Maoists in the name of Operation Kagar should take place at the national level,' the chief minister said.
'Once the Congress finalises its stand on Operation Kagar, the Telangana government would announce its official policy on holding peace talks with the Maoists,' he added.
Jana Reddy was the state home minister in the combined Andhra Pradesh and he had taken initiative in holding a dialogue with the then CPI (M-L) People's War Group in October 2004. During this period, Digvijaya Singh had served as the Congress party in-charge of Andhra Pradesh. It was during the peace talks, the People's War group Naxalites merged with Maoist Communist Centre of India (MCCI) to form the CPI (Maoist).
The chief minister said the government was studying the circumstances and proceedings from the earlier round of peace talks with the Maoists. 'I have discussed all these issues with Kesava Rao, Jana Reddy, and Digvijaya Singh. We shall come out with our policy, after discussing our stand on the issue at the national level,' he said.
During the meeting with the chief minister on Sunday, members of the civil liberties committee and other social groups formed a Committee for Peace Talks requested him to take the initiative in reviving the peace talks with Maoists who had already given a call for ceasefire.
The committee members, including its convenor Justice Chandrakumar, Prof. Haragopal, Prof. Anwar Khan, Durga Prasad, among others, urged the chief minister to discuss the ceasfire with the Central government.
'A tense atmosphere is prevailing in the borders of Chhattisgarh and Telangana due to the ongoing operation at Karreguttalu area, where hundreds of Maoists are holed up. The government should immediately withdraw troops and initiate the democratic process in the area,' Haragopal said and appealed to Revanth Reddy to convince the Centre for a ceasefire.
The chief minister told the committee members that his government was looking at Maoist movement only from a social perspective and did not consider it as a mere law and order issue.
He said would seek advice from senior party leaders like Jana Reddy who held talks with Maoists in the past, on the Maoist issue. 'The state cabinet will also discuss the issue and take a decision soon,' he assured.
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Hindustan Times
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New Delhi : In August 2005, Basant K Ponwar moved from Mizoram to Chhattisgarh. At the time, Maoists had at least 106 districts in central and eastern India in their grip and were steadily expanding their menacing presence, prompting then prime minister Manmohan Singh in 2006 to call left-wing extremism (LWE) as the country's greatest internal security threat. The government's fight against the rebels was flailing, largely because Maoists were trained in jungle warfare and were picking up young boys and girls from villages to train them as child soldiers. In response, the government's bloated forces were unmotivated and unfamiliar with the forested terrain of southern Chhattisgarh. Growing frustration led to misadventures such as the Salwa Judum, a vigilante force that aimed to push back Maoists but ended up pillaging villages and torturing tribespeople, before being disbanded by the Supreme Court in 2011. The retired brigadier Ponwar, then the head of the army's Counter-Insurgency and Jungle Warfare School in Mizoram, took a different approach. The 1971 Indo-Pak war veteran brought his team and set up the elite Counter-Insurgency and Jungle Warfare School in Kanker, about 60km from Raipur. 'To fight in the jungle, you must live in the jungle. Make the jungle your friend. Police had to be reoriented in counter-Naxal operations through a rigorous 45-day programme,' Ponwar told HT. From this initiative was born Chhattisgarh's unique District Reserve Guard (DRG) force in 2007-08, that is at the core of the government's aggressive move to wipe out the decades-old insurgency by next spring. Since 2024, the 6,000-strong force, populated largely by tribal people and former Maoists, has pushed deeper into the Maoist heartland and made inroads into territories considered too hostile even five years ago. 'The locals, who knew the jungle, were formally inducted into the system and further trained in counter-insurgency. Over the years, the recruitment among Naxals also decreased because the local tribal youth would rather join the police,' added Ponwar. Today, DRG personnel are spread across seven Maoism-affected districts in Chhattisgarh, not tasked with regular law-and-order duties, focusing only on guerilla warfare suitable in the dense forests of Abujhmad. The force is involved in almost every key encounter, navigating IEDs, ramming through Maoist ambushes, engaging in gunfights, and guiding other security forces in jungles. This includes the takeover of the key Maoist base at Karregutta hills, a place where forces had never entered before, and the recent killing of top Maoist leader Nambala Keshav Rao or Basavaraju last month. 'DRG jawans are locals, who know the area and the terrain. Their training ensures that they can work in the toughest conditions. 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Police were not adequately trained then as they were largely focused on guarding their posts. I remember then National Security Adviser MK Narayanan constantly telling the Centre how grave the problem had become,' he said. Singh said in meetings between the state and the home ministry, the government decided to build a specialised unit for guerilla warfare against Maoists. 'It started with the police identifying young constables who were residents of Maoist areas, and training them to be part of DRG. These young police officers knew the forest and were well-versed in the topography,' he added. Residents from LWE violence-affected districts are first recruited as constables. Those who show skills in guerilla warfare are handpicked to be in DRG and sent for rigorous training. To underscore their effectiveness, the Chhattisgarh government is now set to approve a proposal to induct around 3,000 more DRG personnel, marking the biggest recruitment in recent years of local tribal men and surrendered Maoists. The state government is also working to make the unit more lucrative by creating a new post of deputy superintendent so that its personnel do not remain stagnant at the inspector level, a senior Chhattisgarh home department official said, asking not to be named. Data on anti-Maoist operations seen by HT showed that between December 1, 2023, and May 20, 2025, at least 401 Maoists were killed in 199 gunfights and 1,355 rebels surrendered. Thirty-seven DRG jawans also died in the attacks. But gun battles are not the most important role of DRG. That would be guiding the forces into the Abhujmad, a 5,000 sq km expanse of uncharted forest spread across Chhattisgarh's four Maoism-affected districts. It is inside this swath of vast uncharted territory where top Maoist leaders traditionally reside, and where the fiercest battles have broken out over the past two years. DRG jawans, born and brought up in the villages within the forest, are the perfect guides to lead the forces inside, said a senior police officer, also requesting anonymity. Anant Ram, a DRG sub-inspector who joined the unit as a constable in 2009, said, 'Intelligence gathering is better when locals are part of the force. The residents are with us.' Another jawan, Binod Kumar, who joined DRG in 2018, said, 'I volunteered to be part of the DRG and was sent to counter-insurgency school. Before that, I had only done regular basic training. Now in DRG, I am proud to be part of a movement.' In the May 21 encounter where Basavaraju was killed, for example, it was the DRG men who broke three layers of his security cordon and killed him in a gunfight, said an additional SP rank officer, who asked not to be named. 'In that operation, around 1,500 DRG from four districts of Sukma, Dantewada, Bijapur and Narayanpur were involved. The only photograph of Basavaraju we had was over 30 years old as he was never arrested. Some DRG jawans, who were surrendered Maoists and had seen Basavaraju, confirmed his identity. DRG jawans not only knew the area but some of the surrendered Maoists were trained by rebels, so they know the antidote to ambush tactics,' said the officer involved in the operation. Chhattisgarh Police's additional director general, Vivekanand Sinha, said the role of locals in fighting is critical to counter any insurgency. 'DRG jawans are trained in guerilla warfare. They know how and where to move in the jungle. They know the modus operandi of the Maoists whether it is about improvised explosive devices planted everywhere or laying an ambush. When such jawans trained in guerilla warfare work in conjunction with the security forces, it is a formidable combination,' he said. Despite DRG's successes, concerns linger. The biggest among them is the memory of the Salwa Judum. Formed in 2005, Salwa Judum (or peace march in Gondi) was a state-sponsored vigilante force that comprised local tribesmen and former Maoists who were trained by police and given weapons to take part in counter-insurgency operations. But the force displaced large numbers of villagers and killed several people as part of extra judicial operations, accusing the victims of being Maoist collaborators. In July 2011, the Supreme Court declared the militia to be illegal and unconstitutional, and ordered its disbanding. Congress leader Mahendra Karma played a key role in organising the militia. He was killed in an ambush by Maoists in May 2013 along with 27 others, including then state Congress chief Nand Kumar Patel and former minister Vidya Charan Shukla. 'This is just another armed force. You have just armed them and given them impunity,' said activist Bela Bhatia. 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