US Dept of State’s country report on Maoist problem in Odisha

BHUBANESWAR: US Department of State has released a country report on India where the report focused on Maoists problem in the country and violence in the central and eastern India. The report revealed the armed conflicts has been emerged between Naxalite (Maoist) insurgents and Government security forces over land and mineral resources in tribal forest areas in the central and eastern India.

The report said most of the conflict areas overlap with the Dandakaranya forest, which covers parts of West Bengal, Jharkhand, Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. Due to the conflict, the report said, 182 of the country’s 626 districts in 20 of its 28 states have been affected.

Stating the reason of the conflict, the report said mindless mining and rapid industrialisation in the forest lands which has large deposits of mineral resources, such as bauxite, iron ore, and uranium, and is home to millions of tribal persons, have created the conflict. “The Ministry of Rural Development in 2009 estimated that up to 400,000 persons had been displaced since the conflict began,” it added.

The report has information about ‘Operation Green Hunt’, the Government’s initiative against Naxalites in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa, and West Bengal, continued. It also said, “The human rights advocates argued that the operation sought not only to suppress the Naxalites but also to force these tribal persons off their land, allowing for commercial development.”

The report mentioned about the attack in February 2012 in Malkangiri district of the State where four officers of the Border Security Force (BSF) were killed in an ambush by Communist Party of India (Maoist) rebels. It has also mentioned about the abduction of two Italian nationals in the State. There is a risk that visitors could become victims of violence, the report warned.