Raipur: An innovative counterinsurgency strategy, in which security forces chose to replicate rebels’ guerrilla warfare tactic of attacking enemies by disguising themselves as local villagers, has yielded unexpected success to the cops battling the ultras in the jungles of Chhattisgarh’s conflict zone of Bastar.
The strategy, executed on experimental basis in south Bastar district of Dantewada last week, led the unsuspecting Maoist guerrillas to walk into ambushes laid by security forces and suffer reverses at two places.
Acting on a tip-off on the movement of a large group of armed rebels in Kesapar jungle under Faraspal police station, the security forces dispatched a ten-member small action team on November 24 to taken them on.
The search team had laid an ambush at a strategic place in Kesapar jungle for the rebels and waited there disguising themselves as villagers.
The SAT caught the rebel group unaware by mounting a sudden attack on them. Padia, section commander of platoon number 13 of CPI (Maoist), was gunned down in the encounter that followed.
Similarly, on November 20, a search party of security personnel took position at a strategic place at Jhirka disguising themselves as tribals to take on a group of armed guerrillas following intelligence inputs on the latter’s movement in the area.
An encounter ensued in which a woman Naxal leader was killed, Dantewada district assistant superintendent of police G.N. Baghel told this newspaper on Thursday.
“We wanted to give the ultras the test of their own medicine by taking a leaf out their guerrilla warfare tactics. The strategy has given rude shocks to the Maoists as they suffered major reverses in the two encounters”, sources in state intelligence bureau here said.
