http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/LF02Df01.html
<http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/LF02Df01.html>*Train terror puts India's Maoists on defensive* By Sudha Ramachandran * Jun 2, 2010* BANGALORE <http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/LF02Df01.html#> - Despite a string of successful attacks in recent weeks, India's<http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/LF02Df01.html#> Maoists are on the defensive. A horrific train crash, which they are believed to have triggered, has evoked widespread condemnation, including from those who the government describes as "Maoist sympathizers". Public outrage over the high casualties - about 148 people were killed and over 200 injured - seems to have prompted the Maoists to distance themselves from the attack. Early on Friday morning, the Mumbai-bound Jnaneshwari Express derailed at Jhagram in West Bengal's<http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/LF02Df01.html#> West Midnapore district, a Maoist stronghold. A few minutes later, a speeding freight train running in the opposite direction hit carriages of the derailed train that had fallen on the parallel track. With the disaster occurring just days before local elections in West Bengal, multiple theories have surfaced over who might have done it. Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee's Trinamul Congress has accused its main rival, the Communist Party of India-Marxists (CPI-M), which rules West Bengal, of sabotaging the railway tracks. Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram has said that "the needle of suspicion points to the Maoists or their frontal organizations". Topmost on the list of suspects is the the People's Committee against Police Atrocities (PCAPA), which has a strong presence in the area. A mass tribal forum, which is said to be backed by the Maoists, the PCAPA was at the forefront of the resistance at Lalgarh in 2008. In October last year it announced that it was taking up armed struggle. While some have pointed out that the attack was uncharacteristic of the Maoists, the argument being that they do not target civilians, evidence suggests otherwise. Figures submitted by the Chhattisgarh government to the Supreme Court indicates that over the past three years Maoists have killed as many civilians as they have security forces personnel. Civilians in Maoist controlled areas have been killed for allegedly acting as police informers or co-operating with the government. A fortnight ago, Maoists indicated that civilians were fair game while they targeted security forces. They blew up a private passenger bus in Chhattisgarh's Dantewada district killing 31 people, mainly civilians. Under pressure, a senior Maoist leader in the south Dandakaranya region said then that civilian deaths "could not be helped". The bus, he pointed out, was carrying special police officers. Indeed, some 30 such officers, returning from combing operations in the Dantewada forests, were taking a ride back to the camp in the bus. Friday's attack on the Jnaneshwari Express provided the Maoists with no such excuse. The train was a passenger train. They have not been able to explain away the civilian deaths as "collateral damage". This is not the first time that the Maoists have targeted a train. Maoists routinely target infrastructure, blowing up railway tracks, telecom towers and power lines. The railways have been a particular target. They remove fishplates on tracks causing trains to derail. They have burnt down railway stations, even held trains hostage for several hours. But these acts were aimed at showing their capacity for damaging infrastructure or paralyzing the movement of trains on busy routes for hours. Rarely have these assaults resulted in death. Friday's derailment was different. The death toll was very high. Television footage of lifeless bodies of children being extracted from mangled coaches has triggered public anger against the Maoists like never before. Even rights activists, normally soft on the Maoists, have come down heavily, describing the attack as reprehensible. "If the Maoists did indeed carry out the attack, they must explain their action. They must explain why civilians were targeted," Supreme Court advocate Prashant Bhushan, regarded a "Maoist sympathiser" by the government, told Asia Times Online. Rarely have the Maoists distanced themselves from attacks they have carried out. And rarely have they seen the need to explain themselves or gone on the defensive mode. The crash at Jhagram was different. As the death toll skyrocketed, Maoist leaders usually willing to talk to the media switched off their mobile phones. First they went on an offensive. "We had no knowledge of the attack on the train. Our people did not do it ... It was the handiwork of CPM goons. It was a conspiracy hatched by the CPM," said Asit Mahato, spokesperson for the PCAPA. As the full extent of the tragedy at Jhagram unfolded, the Maoists went on the defensive, even coming up with an apology. Bapi Mahato, a PCAPA leader, admitted to the sabotage but claimed it was a mistake. "We're sorry," he told the Indian Express. "We never wanted these innocent civilians to die. Trust me, we targeted the goods train. But somehow, we were fed wrong information that the goods train would cross through this track and we removed Pandrol clips [springs used to fix the rail to the sleeper] from a long stretch. We didn't want to harm civilians. There must have been some miscalculation." A section of Maoists have said that if the sabotage was indeed their handiwork then the "rogue rebels" would be punished. "Anybody, even if they are found close to us, will be punished if their involvement is proved beyond doubt," Akaash, a top Maoist leader, told the BBC. It is possible that the death of so many civilians was not intended. The Maoists might not have expected their sabotage of the railtrack at Jhagram to set off a crash of such proportions or to result in such a high number of casualties. It is also possible that their target was the freight train that followed. Still, none of these explanations will get them off the hook. Their choice of armed struggle to fight the state might have drawn international attention to the cause they espouse, but this is not without its drawbacks. Violence doesn't always go according to a pre-written script. It is likely the Maoists sabotaged the railway track at Jhagram to mark the start of a "black week" in the states of West Bengal, Jharkhand, Orissa, Chhattisgarh and Bihar and hoped that a train derailment would signal to the world that even the state's heightened security during the period would not deter them from carrying out an attack. What they ended up signaling is that their so-called "people's war" is not about protecting the interests of people but about unleashing mindless violence. *Sudha Ramachandran is an independent journalist/researcher based in Bangalore.* -- Peace Is Doable -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth?hl=en-GB.
