Maoists strategize to counter CoBRA offensive

The CPI (Maoist) are planning to counter the operation that is to be launched by the newly established central para-military force, Commando Battalion for Resolute Action (CoBRA), in Bihar, on the lines of Lalgarh in West Bengal.

According to a self proclaimed zonal commander of the outfit, a women brigade has been raised with recruits drawn from Dumaria, Bankebazar and Imamganj blocks under Sherghati sub-division of Gaya district.

The members have been prepared to offer stiff resistance to the CoBRA personnel, who are likely to be engaged in operations against Naxalites in Bihar by the end of October or at the beginning of November this year.

“We have changed our strategy following the Union Government’s decision to deploy CoBRA personnel in four worst Naxal affected states,” said the Maoist leader. He said members of the women brigade have been trained to handle sophisticated weapons.

Under the changed strategy, the Maoists would put the trained woman commandos in front.

Though, use of women by Maoists in combat situations is nothing new in Bihar, this will perhaps be for the first time that they will be used as cover by the hardened Naxalite squads to take on the might of CoBRA personnel. They will mainly be used in holding operations, while the main squads prepare ambushes.

Besides, members of the People’s Liberation of Guerilla Army (PLGA), comprising activists and sympathisers with country-made weapons placed as frontal squad of the outfit, would also be there to challenge the security personnel. Theirs remains a delaying action role, well defined for over six years now.

Sources said members of the women brigade were being imparted training at different camps set up in the hilly terrains and forests on the Bihar-Jharkhand-UP-Chhattisgarh borders.

The Maoists reportedly held public meetings at two places and demonstrated their new recruits’ firepower, including one such assembly in Thohi forests under Dumaria police station on Tuesday. A number of squads with around hundred women participated in the exercises.

The meetings denounced the ‘latest actions’ of Congress president Sonia Gandhi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Union Home Minister P Chidambaram.

Sources in the intelligence agencies admitted that the Maoists had changed their strategy after the Centre's decision to deploy CoBRA personnel in four worst Naxal-affected states, including Bihar and Jharkhand.