Author: Amarnath Tewary
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: November 20, 2005
Will the November 13 Jehanabad jailbreak once again lead to bloody caste feuds, leaving behind a trail of massacres in the killing fields of central and south Bihar?
It is in the words of Paula Fox that the Maoist siege of Jehanabad which took place on November 13 can best be described: "There was a siege going on: it had been going on for a long time, but the besieged themselves were the last to take it seriously."
In the week following the Jehanabad siege and jailbreak, it has come to light that the state administration did have prior information about a Maoist operation and had alerted the district authorities. It was the Jehanabad district administration which chose to ignore the warning. The result: one of the biggest extremist operations ever in the country, which rocked the security apparatus of the state and country.
The Maoist siege of Jehanabad has many firsts to its credit. It was the first naxalite operation on a jail in which as many as 389 prisoners were freed; it was the first extremist operation in which such a large number of cadres (about a 1,000) were involved; it was the first Maoist mission in which such a huge quantity of arms and ammunition was used; and it was the first major naxal operation executed so close to the state capital, with military precision of such volume that the entire town was taken hostage for about two hours and not a single naxalite was felled by police bullets (only two naxalites lost their lives while trying to explode a bomb). Most importantly though, it was the first Maoist mission which prompted the government to send in NSG personnel and bulletproof helicopters.
Police officials admit the Jehanabad incident has been an indelible slur on the face of the state administration as well as the country's internal security arrangement. According to an "extremely confidential" letter (vide no 1958), a copy of which is with The Pioneer, Inspector General of Police (Operations) RR Verma had alerted almost all top state officials and the Jehanabad district administration about a possible extremist attack in the area. This was on November 13 - the day of the incident. But the officials treated the missive as routine information. The naxals in the meantime were preparing their deadly mission.
It was a relaxed, laid back autumn Sunday in the otherwise sleepy town of Jehanabad, about 65 km from Patna. Government offices were shut, top administrative officials were sitting idle in their bungalows. With very few shops open, there was little commerce taking place. There was nothing unusual apart from the deceptive movement of the deadly guerrilla contingent of Maoists and the continuous ringing on the cell phone of their imprisoned area commander, Ajay alias Ravi Kanu, in Ward No 7 of the Jehanabad sub-jail. Kanu had been restless since that morning but no one smelled any serious trouble.
The plan was to carry out a midnight attack but the operation kicked off two-and-a-half hours earlier as a landmine exploded early at 9:30 pm. Soon after, all of Jehanabad was under siege. The deafening sound of bullets and bombs rang in from every direction while terrified townsmen huddled inside their homes. Then, the village lights went out and the entire town was engulfed by darkness, broken only by the intermittent light emitted from exploding landmines and crude bombs. The biggest Maoist attack ever was taking place. All through the attack, the Maoists announced that people should stay within their homes.
The police too had by now begun to understand what they were up against. Superintendent of Police Sunil Kumar rushed to the besieged police lines to lead the counter-charge. A fierce encounter followed. The Maoists attacked almost all prominent government establishments - the police lines, the local court, the district magistrate's office, the railway bridge - while their actual target remained the Jehanabad sub-jail.
The media soon got wind of the story and it went on air, live. Two hours after the "live" extremist attack, confusion still prevailed among Patna's top administrative officials. State Chief Secretary GS Kang said there were no casualties yet and that the attack had been repulsed. The Jehanabad district magistrate and Director-General of Police Ashish Ranjan Sinha also sang the same tune - but in halted tones. A few minutes later, state Home Secretary HC Sirohi said what had taken place had been a massive Maoist attack and that at least four people had been killed and a number of jail inmates freed, including Maoist area commander Ajay Kanu. DGP Sinha seemed more nervous than the hapless police constables taking on the naxals in Jehanabad.
It was only later that it became clear that the naxals' main target was the Jehanabad sub-jail where naxal cadres - including leaders Ajay Kanu, Muraliji and Pradyumn Sharma - were incarcerated, along with their bitter rivals, members of the Ranvir Sena. At first, reports said 341 prisoners were missing and four people had been killed, including a policeman Durga Prasad and top Ranvir Sena member Bade alias Binu Sharma. The next morning, the facts seemed clearer. All of 389 jail inmates from a total 680 had gone missing, including a few Sena members, kidnapped from Ward No 3. At a distance, somewhere near the railway line, another dead body was found - that of top Sena leader Bisheshwar Rai.
An infuriated DM Ran Awadhesh Singh later betrayed his frustration before mediamen outside the jail. He ordered a lathi charge on the Press, leaving a few newsmen injured. Media-bashing carried on the next day too. The Patna High Court and the Press Council of India later took up the matter, calling the incident an attack on democracy.
Later, the state administration led by Governor Buta Singh termed the Jehanabad incident an administrative failure and suspended district police chief Sunil Kumar. The DM was spared. Significantly, the local constabulary protested against the suspension of their SP, saying he had been alongside them at the very front fighting the naxals. Central paramilitary forces were subsequently requisitioned. Two hundred and eighty NSG commandos and five bullet proof helicopters were asked for to help track down the extremists. Intensive combing operations were launched under the command of the new SP Bacchu Singh Meena and IGP SK Bhardwaj.
A week after the Jehanabad incident, 15 Maoists have been identified. One hundred and nine jail inmates have returned to their wards but there have been no arrests so far. About 300 prisoners, most of them naxals, have not yet been traced in spite of the administration declaring that action will not be taken against those who return voluntarily.
For a state in the middle of an election, politicisation of the issue was an inevitable consequence. BJP leaders claimed that the incident was orchestrated by the RJD, while RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav alleged that Jehanabad was the Opposition's way of fomenting caste-based tension in society. The buzz in political corridors is that the Jehanabad attack was a last-ditch attempt by a certain political party to retain power in the state but that the effort proved futile following no retaliatory action by the Ranvir Sena before the last phase of polls on November 19. Had there been such a retaliatory action, which the Ranvir Sena had threatened, the theory went, the voting bloc comprising Bihar's extremely backward classes and upper castes would have been sufficiently polarised, helping the said political party win another term in Patna.
What next? Will naxal extremists in the state - there are about 3,000 of them - now emboldened, think of repeating their Jehanabad success story? Will the incident once again lead to bloody caste feuds, leaving behind a trail of massacres in the killing fields of central and south Bihar? Or will the incident prompt the state government to finally wake up to the threat of naxal violence?
The answers to these questions will be learnt only with time. But there is another - and with the election results pending, more important - question which needs an answer. Will Bihar ever emerge from the mess it has seen itself slide into over the last 15 years? Or will Jehanabad fill up just another page of its long and loathsome political history? Naxalism, it is said, has its roots in the conditions of the deprived. To rid ourselves of this scourge then, development and strong political will are the two imperatives. Until then, the ghosts of Jehanabad will continue to hound the state, its administration and its people.