Maoists gunned down seven tribals, who they suspected of being police informers, in Gadchiroli during the past fortnight. This is the highest number of civilian deaths in Maoist violence in nearly a decade. The upsurge in Maoist violence follows relative calm through 2018, during which the Maharashtra police eliminated 50 rebels without losing any of their own men.

Three villagersMallu Madavi, Kannu Madavi and Lalsu Kudyeti of Kasnasur in Bhamragad tehsilwere shot on January 21. The rebels believe these men had tipped off the police, leading to the ambush and killing of 40 Maoists on April 23 last year. On January 21, they also killed two other police informers’. Two more tribal villagers were gunned down on February 2 at Markegaon, where the Maoists had killed 48 police personnel in three separate incidents in 2009.

Caught in the crossfore? Suspecting them to be police informers, Maoists gunned down several tribals.

The rebels left pamphlets in which they accused the dead men of being police informers’. One body was draped in a banner that stated that the deceased had been awarded capital punishment for his deeds. The pamphlets also called for a strike on January 31, to protest the Union government schemes to build infrastructure in Gadchiroli.

The resurgent Maoist presence in the area was also evident from earlier incidents; the rebels had abducted eight villagers in January, threatening to punish them for passing on information to the police. The whereabouts of these villagers is still unknown. In Kasnasur, the Maoists set fire to construction vehicles worth Rs 3 crore.

The recent killings follow on the heels of CPI (Maoist)’s decision in October last year to replace their aging former chief Ganapathi with Basavaraju. Security officials believe these killings are Basavaraju’s bid to assert his presence.

Shailesh Balkawade, the superintendent of police of Gadchiroli, said the villagers who were killed were not informers. He added that the police always acknowledges its informers who become victims of Maoist violence and that there is, in fact, a government scheme to provide compensation to their families. Balkawade claimed the Maoists were carrying out random killings as they were frustrated after repeated failures in 2018, losing cadres without killing a single policeman.

In Palghar, about 100 km from Mumbai, rebels put up banners last month proclaiming the area as a Maoist domain liberated from the Indian government.

In another crackdown on alleged Maoist sympathisers, the Maharashtra government arrested Anand Teltumbde, a civil rights activist and professor at the Goa Institute of Management Science, on February 2. Teltumbde has denied any link with the Elgar Parishad, which allegedly provoked the violence in Koregaon-Bhima on January 1, 2018. Teltumbde’s brother-in-law Prakash Ambedkar, of the Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangh, has accused the state government of vendetta. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis was combative in reiterating that he means to root out the Maoists. However, the Maharashtra government’s move has backfired, with the Pune sessions court ordering Teltumbde’s release in view of the fact that the Supreme Court had granted him protection from arrest until February 14.