In India, the army announced on Wednesday April 3 that it had killed 13 armed fighters, members of the Maoist rebellion. The operation took place on Tuesday in the forest state of Chhattisgarh, in the east of the country, which is one of the bases of these fighters. There has been an intensification of army operations, ahead of the legislative elections which begin in two weeks.
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The clashes took place on Tuesday, April 2, at dawn, and lasted for approximately eight hours. Paramilitaries and special forces stormed a suspected group of 100 Maoist rebels in the Bijapur forest in Chhattisgarh state. A total of 13 fighters were then killed, and automatic weapons and grenade launchers were recovered.
The army believes that they were part of the armed guerrilla of popular liberation, the armed wing of the Maoist party, which is banned in India. In all, 22 Maoist fighters have been killed in two weeks in this region – and more than 50 since the start of the year.
An intensification of military operations as the elections approach
Finding its origins in a peasant jacquerie in a village in West Bengal in 1967, the Maoist guerrillas have been fighting New Delhi with arms for half a century. It is now folded into a “red corridor” of forests in central, southern and eastern India. Naxalites, the official name for Maoist insurgents in India, say they are fighting for rural residents and the poor. Their strongholds are in regions where a large part of the population remains mired in poverty, without access to essential services.
The intensification of military operations is certainly linked to the approach of legislative elections. The inhabitants of this area of Chhattisgarh will vote on April 19 to renew their federal deputies, and the rebels regularly carry out attacks against the candidates during the campaign. The government therefore wants to push back these fighters to prevent this violence.
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