Storm after the lull: PW targets big

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal">HYDERABAD: The attempt on Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu''s life at Tirumala on Wednesday was the biggest operation ever attempted by the People''s War Naxalite group in the state. <br /><br />Although Naidu and his economic policies were the exact antithesis of the Naxalites'' ideology of annihilation, Wednesday''s assassination bid still came as a surprise.For, until now, the Marxist-Leninist group had limited itself to attacking locally important functionaries rather than go for the representative figure of the state. <br /><br />The most important personalities, who have been assassinated by the Maoist group were IPS officers K S Vyas and Umesh Chandra, panchayat raj minister A Madhava Reddy, former speaker D Sripada Rao, legislators Magunta Subbarami Reddy and Ragya Naik. <br /><br />Since 2001, the PW has killed over 250 civilians, 70 policemen, 74 politicians and destroyed about Rs 5,500 lakh worth of public and private properties in the state. However, there have been infrequent reports that the PW had been trying to target the chief minister by forming action teams. <br /><br />According to sources in the intelligence department, the PW has assembled 16 such action teams, most of them comprising women. Despite that knowledge and some elaborate security arrangements for the chief minister, the intelligence wing failed to adequately sensitise security personnel to anticipate attacks on VVIPs, a security expert told <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">The Times of India</span>. <br /><br />The expert said it was evidently a security lapse to have cleared Naidu''s route on Wednesday. The drivers of cars in the convoy also seemingly did not follow the security drill, the expert said. <br /><br />Morever, the state''s security apparatus had in recent months been gloating that it had the People''s War on the ropes and that the group was planning to move its cadres out to escape the heat. <br /><br />Marxist-Leninist singer Gadar said the attempt on Naidu took place because the government had deliberately scuttled the peace talks with the naxalites last year. Had the government made a sincere effort, this attack might not have taken place, he said adding that the PW might have been pushed into the attack by the recent spate of fake encounters in the state. </div> </div>