The growing voices of dissent among Maoists are crippling the rebel movement with the top leadership now targeting the lower-rung cadres for flouting diktats. The recent killings of three Maoists in Chhattisgarh were the fallout of the growing uprising within the rebel movement, according to intelligence agencies.

The three Maoists, who wanted to surrender before the security forces, were gunned down by their own people after the top leaders decided at a jan-adalat or a people's court that anybody making an attempt to lay down arms should be killed. Outsiders unwelcome Intelligence reports and accounts of recently surrendered Maoists indicate that the local tribal population in Chhattisgarh who joined the movement are not happy with the top leadership which belongs to Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. Sources told Mail Today that this was not the first time such killings had taken place and there had been instances where those who didn't agree with the top leadership were killed for being police informers.

"In many cases, after killing their own people Maoist leaders have claimed that they were killed in police encounter," said an official who is part of anti-Maoist operations in Chhattisgarh. There are intelligence inputs that at least eight more such killings have taken place in the state as the rift between the local Maoist leaders and those from outside is widening.

"The locals feel exploited by the top leadership and look at them as outsiders," said a security official. The forces on the ground are trying to take advantage of the growing dissent and pushing the lower-rung Maoists to surrender. The rebel movement has been jolted as the surrenders are increasing over the last one year. The figure was only 282 in 2013 while 671 rebels surrendered last year.

A similar trend can be seen this year with 157 rebels laying arms in the first four months. Last year there were 91 surrenders in the corresponding period. Chhattisgarh, where Maoists are being targeted by their own leadership, incidentally has registered the highest surrender rate with over 70 rebels giving up arms this year in the Bastar area, a Maoist stronghold. Those killed were senior members of the antisocial movement.

The state government had announced cash rewards on them. In the recent incident of killings, five local Maoists who wanted to surrender were abducted and kept in confinement. Hemla Bhagat, his wife Kosi Kursem, Badru alias Masa Podivami, Madvi Hinga and Hura were picked up after it was discovered that they were planning to surrender. Somehow Hura managed to escape and surrendered to the police narrating the entire incident. While bodies of Bhagat, Kursem and Podivami were recovered, there is no trace of Hinga. The central committee of the Maoists has also expressed its dissatisfaction with the trends, which suggest that the movement is facing setbacks owing to such differences.

Hitting hurdles

A report of intelligence agencies states that key areas like mass base, intensity and expanse of the People's Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA), recruitment and non-proletarian trends are creating hurdles for the movement. As the number of people leaving the Maoists has increased, the central committee in its resolutions has called for intensifying the rebel cause by expanding to urban centres.