Chhattisgarh cops rubbish reports on cornering top Maoist Ganapathy

RAIPUR: Chhattisgarh police has described reports that its personnel and para-military forces have encircled top Maoist leader and outlawed CPI (Maoist) general secretary Ganapathy alias Muppala Lakshman Rao in the Abujmarh forests in tribal Bastar region as “highly speculative”. “I don’t have any clue about it. Is it practically possible to encircle Abujmarh- spread over an area of more than about 4,000 square kilometres and has a dense forest cover, rocky terrain, rivers and rivulets and inaccessible forest?” a top police official reasoned.
He said security forces, including from the para-military, have been regularly conducting search and combing operations at different places on the basis of intelligence inputs suggesting presence of Maoist cadres. “Because of mounting pressure from the forces, nearly 200 lower-rung cadres of outlawed CPI (Maoist) had surrendered during the last couple of months,” he pointed out.
Abujmarh, the home of aboriginal tribes, has always been a Maoist hot-bed with police or civil administration seldom venturing into its mountain ranges, which falls in Narayanpur, Bijapur and Dantewada districts and also borders with Maharashtra.
The population density there is less than 10 persons per square mile. With the famous Indravati River separating Abujmarh from the rest of tribal Bastar, entry to the mountain ranges is possible only through forest pathways from Narayanpur, Bijapur and Basroor areas.
Meanwhile, security forces have stepped up vigil in the areas bordering neighbouring Maharashtra where assembly elections are scheduled for October 15. The worst Naxalism-hit district of Gadchiroli in neighbouring Maharashtra borders with equally-sensitive Rajnandgaon, Bijapur, Narayanpur and Kanker districts of Chhattisgarh and more specifically, Abujmarh.