Law Kumar Mishra
Union Home Minister Amit Shah has claimed that Maoist extremists in Bastar will be wiped out by 26 January 2026.
Twenty-four years ago, the then Director General of Police of Chhattisgarh, R.L.S. Yadav, had declared: “Communism has ended in Russia, now Maoism will also be eliminated from Chhattisgarh.”
I was transferred from Jammu and Kashmir, a state then severely affected by extreme insurgency and terrorism, to Chhattisgarh, which was under Maoist influence. The Bastar of that time and today’s Bastar are very different. Bastar district has now been split into several parts; blocks have now become districts.
Twenty years ago, 32,000 officers and jawans of the State Police, Border Security Force, Central Reserve Police Force, and Punjab Police were posted in Bastar. After sunset, not a single civilian or police personnel could be seen on the roads. Markets opened only during the day, and in general elections, voting was around 7–8 percent.
I got the opportunity several times to visit Konta, Sukma, and Bijapur. One could only move around with a press sticker. Once I went to Bijapur, which at that time was just a block. A block officer had been killed there. When we reached a small stream, two young men arrived on a motorcycle and asked the reason for my visit. They told me, “Dada informed us of your arrival from Jagdalpur itself. You should turn back.” I learned that these were messengers of the Naxalites. They told me, “We receive all magazines and newspapers published from Delhi and Mumbai. We keep note of what you write.”
The Bastar Naxalites even had several printing presses in the jungle, from where they issued their press releases. Following their instructions, we returned to Dantewada, and the next morning bathed in the Sabari River, situated on the Chhattisgarh–Odisha border in Malkangiri. When Biju Patnaik was the Chief Minister of Odisha, he divided Koraput and created Malkangiri district, appointing 1986-batch young officer Gagan Kumar Dhal as its first District Magistrate. Opposition leaders accused in the Assembly that the Collector was a Maoist supporter. The Chief Minister replied, “Yes, he is reflecting my will.”
From Kondagaon to Konta, I did not see a single police jeep anywhere. At that time, in Dantewada, Mohammed Wazir Ansari, a 1984-batch Inspector General of Police, would also travel without uniform, without a beacon light, and without a siren, in a Tata Sumo. Instead of a police flag, the front of the vehicle carried a red-yellow scarf of the Danteshwari Devi. Police officers and jawans would also wrap themselves in blankets instead of coats.
Police stations were heavily fortified, with armed personnel on high towers and barbed wire all around, from which colourful liquor bottles hung. Ansari told me, “The police were facing heavy attacks, and personnel on patrol were being killed. That is why, as a tactical strategy, the use of police uniforms was banned. Even road-opening parties were attacked, so patrolling was done on motorcycles and later on foot.”
On the highway between Bastar and Dantewada, the “highly fortified” Geedam police station was looted in broad daylight by a Naxalite squad. They took away weapons and even killed the Station House Officer. In Rajnandgaon, the district Superintendent of Police was killed along with 19 other personnel — they were in uniform.
Even now, police stations remain heavily secured. The security of all stations from Narayanpur to Antagarh has been increased. Abujhmad, which the Maoists had declared a “liberated zone,” is now under the control of Bastar Police.
(The author as served in Chhattisgarh as Times of India Correspondent)
