The Hindu : Karnataka News : Police in the dark about Maoists' activities

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Aug 14, 2004

Karnataka

Karnataka

Police in the dark about Maoists' activities

By K.V. Subramanya

BANGALORE, AUG. 13. The police and intelligence officials appear to be in the dark about the activities of Nepali Maoists in Bangalore.

The Young Communist League, a frontal organisation of the Nepali Maoists who are waging an armed struggle against the monarchy in the Himalayan kingdom, seems to be running a campaign of writing slogans on the walls in the city.

Slogans such as "Long live YCL Nepal" and "Maobad (Maoism) zindabad, Communist Party of Nepal" have been found written on the walls near the Lalbagh West Gate.

Funds collection

According to sources in the Central intelligence agencies, the Young Communist League has been collecting funds in India and is using the services of Nepali students and workers for its activities.

Its activities are mainly concentrated in West Bengal.

ISI agent

Sources said Ram Charan Shresta, a Kathmandu-based Inter-Services Intelligence (Pakistan) agent and an ideologue of the Young Communist League, was coordinating the Indian operations.

While the wall writings point to the presence of Nepali Maoists in the city and their activities, the Commissioner of Police, S. Mariswamy, said the Young Communist League was not operating in Bangalore and the police had no information on the organisation or its activists.

A senior IPS officer in the State Intelligence wing told The Hindu that he had no information on the Young Communist League and sought time to check details.

PW-Maoists nexus

However, a former chief of the Anti-Terrorist Squad said the Nepali Maoists were in league with the naxalites of the People's War.

"People's War sympathisers, who are many here, could have carried out the wall writings. Bangalore also has a sizeable Nepali population," he said.

Umbrella unit

People's War maintains active links with other Maoist outfits in South Asia.

The sources said that nine Left wing extremist outfits active in India, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh formed an umbrella organisation, the Coordination Committee of Maoist Parties and Organisations in South Asia (CCOMPOSA), on July 1, 2001, to unify and coordinate the activities of the Maoist parties and organisations in the subcontinent.

People's War, in association with the Maoist Communist Centre and the Maoist insurgents in Nepal, is believed to have been instrumental in the formation of the coordination committee.

Strategy

For some time now, People's War with other Left wing extremists of the subcontinent had been trying to set up a "compact revolutionary zone", the sources added.

The Young Communist League activities in the city assume significance in the wake of recent media reports that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the U.S. had alerted Indian intelligence agencies to a possible attack by Nepali militants on vital installations in Bangalore.

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