KORAPUT: Its residents like to call it the Kashmir of Orissa.
Perched along mountains that soar above 1,000 metres, and home to some of south-east India’s most stunning forests, Koraput’s claims are not unreasonable.
But Sunday’s Maoist raid on an explosives storage facility, which claimed the lives of 10 Central Industrial Security Force personnel, has given the Kashmir metaphor a disquieting new edge.
In the years since 2004, when Koraput’s almost-unguarded police armoury was sacked in the glare of the noon-day sun, the Maoists have acquired ever-increasing influence in the district’s eastern and southern tehsils.
Only six civilians and two insurgents had been killed in the violence in fighting in Koraput since January, which included an abortive attempt to bomb a Central Reserve Police Force patrol. But the Maoist raid on the National Aluminium Company’s explosives warehouse far exceeded in its skill and scale anything seen so far in the district. Worse could be round the corner.
One simple fact lies at the heart of the problem: the Orissa police are outgunned and outmanned.
Based on intelligence estimates, the authorities believe that the Maoists’ Koraput Division Committee includes some 150 combat-trained cadre, backed by perhaps three times as many people in support and logistic roles.
Koraput’s police force, by contrast, has just two trained and specially equipped counter-insurgency Special Operations Groups at its disposal, each with 29 personnel including the five or six men who are on leave at any given point of time. Given that the district sprawls across 7,897 km, the chances of these crack units being in the right place at the right time are negligible. Even when intelligence comes in, the absence of helicopter transport means the Special Operations Groups often have no way of acting on it.
Moreover, the police are hideously short of officers at the cutting-edge level. In theory, Koraput’s 882-strong police force is meant to be led by 11 Deputy Superintendents, 26 inspectors and 70 sub-inspectors. On ground, it has only 6 Deputy Superintendents, 19 inspectors and 27 sub-inspectors. Even if Koraput was to be assigned its full complement of officers to command its 775 constables and other ranks many of whom are committed to static duties, like protecting government buildings, that still wouldn’t solve the problem. Every hundred km of the district’s area would then have 11.16 police personnel available to guard it, a figure less than half that of the Orissa average, and one of the lowest in India.
Koraput’s problems reflect a State-wide malaise.
Orissa, National Crime Records Bureau data for 2006 shows, has just 24.9 police officers for every 100 sq.km of territory, the lowest figure after Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. Tripura, which defeated a protracted insurgency despite harsh jungle terrain, has 193.6; Jammu and Kashmir has 58.4.
Last year, government data shows, Orissa had just 10,839 armed police personnel instead of the 14,891 who should have been in place. It had 252 officers ranking from Deputy Superintendent to Senior Superintendent of Police instead of the 304 needed, and only 4,542 inspectors instead of the 5,933 sanctioned.
New Delhi, whose attention has been focussed on the more severe fighting in Chhattisgarh, has done little to address the problem in Orissa. Koraput’s police force has just two Central Reserve Police Force companies at its disposal, in practice, some 250 men, whose principal responsibility is guarding their camps from attack. Malkangiri has received twice as many. But Bijapur, just across the border in Chhattisgarh, has received 39 CRPF companies, while Dantewada has 27.
No easy solutions exist to solve problems in police infrastructure which arose as a result of decades of neglect. But solutions will have to be found, and soon, if Orissa is not to go the way of Chhattisgarh.