Author: Kay Benedict
Publication: The Telegraph
Date: October 15, 2004
URL: http://www.telegraphindia.com/1041015/asp/nation/story_3885891.asp
On the eve of talks with the Andhra
Pradesh government, two prominent Naxalite outfits officially announced
their merger and their intention to raise "police harassment" of Muslims
in the state.
People's War and the Maoist Communist
Centre of India merged on September 21 to form a new outfit called the
Communist Party of India (Maoist), a PW emissary told a group of journalists
here today.
A source said the new outfit decided
to raise the minority issue of Muslims during the five-day talks beginning
tomorrow because Naxalites were under fire for neglecting to fight religious
divisions while combating class differences.
They also faced flak for keeping
quiet on human rights violations in Gujarat following the Godhra carnage
in 2002, the source added.
Writing in the Economic and Political
Weekly, Left thinker Suman Banerjee recently blasted the two Naxalite outfits
for being inert during the Gujarat riots and when the RSS made inroads
into tribal areas of several states.
Lateef Khan of the Andhra Pradesh
Civil Liberties Committee recently said that Muslims were unhappy with
the rebels' silence on "police harassment" of community members.
Warning the state government against
"ignoring people's issues" a few days ago, PW Andhra secretary Akkiraju
Hargopal had said he would ask for a halt to the harassment of Muslim youths
by branding them Pakistan and ISI agents.
After 9/11, the state police had
picked up several Muslim youths for questioning. Hargopal said he had received
hundreds of representations from people, including families of the youths,
to raise their demands during the talks.
An official appeal was first made
a few days ago at a meeting of the youths' relatives organised in Hyderabad
by the "People's Assembly".
It is an umbrella body of Dalit
and Muslim organisations such as the Darasgah-e-Jihad- -Shahadat, the Civil
Liberties Monitoring Committee, the Praja Kala Mandal, and the Ambedkar
Sangham Forum for Elimination of Caste System.
The meeting passed a resolution,
urging the PW to include "harassment of minorities" in the outfit's talks
agenda.
Community leaders reportedly told
the Naxalites that 1 crore Muslims in Andhra were especially unhappy with
them for keeping quiet on the police action against Muslim women when they
demonstrated against the harassment of youths.
Showing a CD of the merger conference
held in an unspecified jungle camp (which appeared to be in Jharkhand or
Bihar), a PW emissary said today the move was "a very important step in
Indian revolution".
MCC's Kishen and PW's Ganapati were
shown signing the merger document, with women cadre in army fatigue, carrying
the outfits' flags and rifles, marching and singing in the background.
It has thus ended two decades of
bloody battle for hegemony between the two outfits and is expected to strengthen
the Naxalites in 13 states.
Declining to disclose his identity,
the emissary claimed that the new outfit has no link with the Maoists of
Nepal and described the so-called extremist "corridor" (Nepal to Andhra)
as fiction created by some reporters, government officials and police.
Talks are on with the Jana Shakti
for a merger, he added.
The CPI (Maoist) will continue to
be an underground organisation, the emissary emphasised.
Jharkhand, he said, was leading
in human rights violations followed by Tamil Nadu and Bihar. There have
been no encounter killings in Andhra after the new government came to power,
he said.
The CPI (Maoist), the emissary added,
would not object if any of its state units wanted to talk with the government
concerned, depending on local conditions. "Our interest is that human rights
violation be minimised," he said.
