Getting ready for launching a decisive battle against the Left-wing extremists across eight major states after the monsoon, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has declared CPI (Maoist), the unified organisation of motley left-wing extremists organisations as a terrorist outfit.
The Home Ministry moved fast on banning the CPI(Maoist) under the Unlawful Activities Prevention (Amendment) Act, 2008, after West Bengal and some other states governments continued to dither on banning these groups.
The ban on the CPI (Maoists) comes in the wake of rising violence unleashed by the Left-wing groups across the eastern and central region as was recently witnessed in Lalgarh where extremists had virtually taken control of the villages. Lalgarh saw a stand-off between the entrenched insurgents and the security forces for days together before the forces reclaimed it. Many Naxalite-affected states like Orissa, Tamil Nadu, Jharkhand, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh have already declared various Left wing outfits as unlawful. However, the Home Ministry, which is preparing plans for a major offensive against the extremists across eight states in near future, has now included the CPI (Maoist) in the list of banned organisations. The MHA’s list of banned organisations includes Al Qaida, Hizbul Mujjahideen and various pan-Islamic organisations.
In fact the ban is not new since the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) and People’s War, and the Maoist Communist Centre (MCC) and all their formations and front organisations, which has since been amalgamated into CPI (Maoist), are already in the MHA’s list of 32 banned organisations. However, MHA sources said that though the CPI (Maoists) had been formed in September 2004, the Left wing groups continued to dodge the law while continuing to operate under their earlier banners in some states. The MHA has finally concluded that CPI(Maoist) was the main organisation controlling the Naxalite operations in most of the states and it needs to be banned all over the country.
According to A K Doval, former Intelligence Bureau chief, banning an organisation helps security forces dismantle its support base and over-ground infrastructure. He, however, said that the ban on the Maoist groups would prove useful only if the centre has done it with enough preparations and not in a huff.
